BitMEX Research reported that Judge James Mellor ruled on March 14 that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of the Bitcoin network. The lawsuit against Wright was brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and closing arguments began on March 12 in London. Wright, an Australian computer scientist, has claimed to be Nakamoto since 2016, but has been accused of document forgery to support his claim. COPA was seeking injunctive relief to prevent Wright from continuing to claim to be Nakamoto.
The trial started on February 5 and on January 24, Wright offered to settle the case out of court, but COPA declined. COPA was founded in 2020 with the goal of promoting the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technologies and removing patents as a barrier to growth and innovation. Its members include Coinbase, Block, Meta, MicroStrategy, Kraken, Paradigm, Uniswap, and Worldcoin.
In 2023, Wright sued 13 Bitcoin Core developers as well as companies like Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block for copyright violations related to the Bitcoin white paper, its file format, and database rights to the Bitcoin blockchain. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded to the lawsuit by stating that Wright filed for United States copyright registration for the Bitcoin white paper and its code in 2019. However, the white paper is now subject to an MIT open-source license, allowing anyone to reuse and modify the code. A court injunction would prevent Wright from making further copyright claims on it.