A court in the United Kingdom has authorized the freezing of £6 million ($7.6 million) of Craig Wright’s assets in order to prevent him from avoiding court expenses related to his claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the Bitcoin (BTC) network.
The decision came after Wright moved some of his assets out of the UK following a court ruling that rejected his claim of being Nakamoto. According to a UK court document, this prompted him to transfer shares of his London company, RCJBR Holding, to a Singaporean entity on March 18. Judge James Mellor stated in the document that he supports the “worldwide freezing order” requested by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to cover COPA’s total court expenses of $8,471,225 (£6,703,747.91).
COPA was established in 2020 with the aim of promoting the adoption and advancement of cryptocurrency technologies and removing patents as a barrier to growth and innovation. Its 33 members include Coinbase, Block, Meta, MicroStrategy, Kraken, Paradigm, Uniswap, and Worldcoin.
Wright, an Australian computer scientist, used his claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto to file copyright claims related to the Bitcoin network. For example, in January 2021, he demanded that two websites remove the Bitcoin white paper.
In April 2021, COPA filed a lawsuit against Wright, challenging his claims of being Nakamoto and therefore owning the copyright to Bitcoin. After hearing testimonies from early Bitcoin developers such as Martti Malmi, the judge concluded on March 14 of this year that the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Wright is not Nakamoto.
In 2023, Wright sued 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 the database rights to the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded to the lawsuit, highlighting the trend of abusive lawsuits against prominent Bitcoin contributors, which hinder development due to the associated time, stress, expenses, and legal risks. In 2019, Wright registered the copyright for the Bitcoin white paper and its code in the United States.
The Bitcoin white paper is now subject to an MIT open-source license, allowing anyone to reuse and modify the code for any purpose. A court injunction would prevent Wright from making further copyright claims on it.