Australian computer scientist and self-proclaimed inventor of bitcoin Craig Wright has had his copyright claims to bitcoin and the original bitcoin white paper struck down by Judge James Mellor.
Craig Wright (probably) isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous author of the 2009 bitcoin white paper, although he has long purported to be.
Wright has gone as far as to launch a defamation suit against crypto influencer Hodlonaut in Norway after calling Wright a “scammer” via Twitter.
The Oslo courts threw the case out, stating that “the prevailing opinion in the media” is that “Wright is unlikely to be Satoshi Nakamoto”, making any defamation allegations redundant.
Wright launched a libel lawsuit against Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in 2020 for similar statements.
He has long claimed that bitcoin ‘forks’, which are essential carbon copies of the original bitcoin code, repackaged and rebranded, breach his intellectual property rights.
Wright himself launched a fork of bitcoin in 2018 called Bitcoin SV (short for Satoshi Vision). Other popular bitcoin forks include Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold.
In his Tuesday ruling, Judge Mellor argued that “no relevant work has been identified” showing bitcoin’s origins.