Assets belonging to Craig Wright frozen by UK court, amounting to more than $8M.

A court in the United Kingdom has given the green light to freeze £6.7 million ($8.4 million) worth of Craig Wright’s assets in order to prevent him from evading court costs. This decision came after Wright moved some of his assets out of the U.K. following a court ruling that disproved his claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. According to a court document, this prompted him to transfer shares of his London firm, RCJBR Holding, to a Singaporean entity on March 18. Judge James Mellor stated:
The judge has approved a “worldwide freezing order” by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to cover its total court costs of £6.7 million ($8.4 million).
COPA was established in 2020 with the aim of promoting the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technologies and eliminating patents as a barrier to growth and innovation. Its 33 members include Coinbase, Block, Meta, MicroStrategy, Kraken, Paradigm, Uniswap, and Worldcoin.
An Australian computer scientist, Wright falsely claimed to be Nakamoto in order to make copyright claims regarding the Bitcoin network. In January 2021, he demanded that two websites remove the Bitcoin white paper.
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In April 2021, COPA filed a lawsuit against Wright, challenging his claims. On March 14, Judge Mellor ruled that Wright is not Nakamoto.
In 2023, Wright filed lawsuits against 13 Bitcoin Core developers and a group of companies, including Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block, for copyright infringements related to the Bitcoin white paper, its file format, and database rights to the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded, highlighting the trend of baseless lawsuits against prominent Bitcoin contributors, which hinder development due to the associated time, stress, expenses, and legal risks. In 2019, Wright applied for copyright registration for the Bitcoin white paper in the United States.
The Bitcoin white paper is now available under an MIT open-source license, allowing anyone to reuse and modify the code for any purpose.
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