- A ruling over Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto will be made in the UK in January 2024
- Wright has multiple cases clogging up the British courts based on this premise
- Justice Mellor decided that a single ruling on the matter would represent the best way forward
A ruling on whether Craig Wright is or isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto will be held in January 2024 after a UK judge rolled the core issues of multiple cases into one. Wright has staked his reputation on being legally recognised as Bitcoin’s creator despite the multitude of evidence to the contrary and has launched several lawsuits in the UK based on this premise, and that BSV is the real Bitcoin. Now, a judge will finally look at this evidence and decide whether or not Wright can claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto in the UK or not.
Wright Clogging Up UK Courts
Wright first took the legal route to try and gain acceptance as Satoshi in 2019 when he sued a selection of individuals who called him a fraud, including Vitalik Buterin, Peter McCormack, Roger Ver, Adam Back, and Hodlonaut. Only two of those made court, with Wright losing to Hodlonaut in Norway and only winning £1 against McCormack after he was found to have advanced a false case.
Since then Wright has taken a more technical approach, suing blockchain developers and crypto exchanges over his belief that BSV is the real Bitcoin, that his copyright as Satoshi Nakamoto is being infringed, and that he is owed over 110,000 BTC which was supposedly stolen from him in Britain’s biggest heist.
Four in One
Four of these cases have the concept of Wright being Satoshi Nakamoto at their heart, as does the lawsuit filed against him by COPA, and so all sides in many of these cases convened this week over the matter. The judge, Justice Mellor, decided that the core issue of Wright’s Satoshiness need only be decided once rather than four times, and so a court case will take place in London in January where the matter will be decided once and for all.
So this could be the reason for the fall out/change of solicitor by Wright. 4 cases to be heard together on ‘the identity issue’ as the court puts it. This is bad for Creg. Combined defences and resources going to be pooled. pic.twitter.com/Kv7jofVNEO
— Will Mackenzie (@itswillmack) June 14, 2023
Were Wright to lose he would be unable to make the claim that he is Satoshi in the UK, although he would naturally appeal all the way to the Supreme Court were this to be the case. Were he to win, however, and the other sides failed to appeal or lost their appeals, this will give him a strong foundation to continue all his lawsuits, with potentially catastrophic effects for exchanges and open source developers in all sectors.
