Craig Wright, who falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, was found in contempt of court and sentenced to 12 months in prison after launching a £900 billion ($1.1 trillion) legal claim for intellectual property rights. related to the Bitcoin system.
The case was brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, which argued that Wright’s lawsuit in October violated the London court’s July ruling barring him from launching proceedings related to his claim to be Nakamoto.
“As far as the grounds for contempt are concerned, I have found that each of them is proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” Judge James Mellor said.
Wright, who was in Asia, appeared virtually in court Thursday to hear the sentence, which is suspended for two years. Wright refused to say where in Asia he was and insisted he would appeal the verdict.
In March, Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto. He then issued an injunction preventing Wright from bringing proceedings in the UK and other jurisdictions relating to the claim.
“Dr. Wright is perfectly capable, once the dust has settled, of stepping up his public pronouncements again,” Mellor wrote at the time.
Prior to COPA’s victory, Wright had filed several court cases against the bitcoin community surrounding the bitcoin whitepaper, defamation lawsuits, and claims against developers.
Read more: Craig Wright lied to UK court ‘extensively and repeatedly’, judge writes
UPDATE (December 19, 16:15 UTC): Updates with judge’s ruling, sentence.
CORRECTION (December 19, 16:41 UTC): Corrects the figure in the first paragraph to £900 billion. An earlier version of this story said 900 million.
UPDATE (December 19, 17:03 UTC): Add the judge’s comment in the third paragraph, Wright’s location, the appeal in the fourth.
