Judge James Mellor issued a written decision in the case of the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) against Craig Wright, accusing the latter of perjury during the proceedings.
From the written judgment: “…Dr Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person. However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. In both his written evidence and in days of oral evidence under cross-examination, I am entirely satisfied that Dr…
— COPA (@opencryptoorg) May 20, 2024
Mellor noted that Wright’s testimony was “at best unreliable or of very questionable significance, or entirely indirect, and at worst fabricated and/or based on documents” that Wright had falsified.
According to the judge, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto bore personal responsibility for creating each forgery, failed to understand basic aspects of Bitcoin technology, and “is not as clever as he thinks.” Mellor expressed full confidence that Wright “repeatedly lied to the court” in his testimony.
“Dr Wright’s attempts to prove that he was/is Satoshi Nakamoto represent the most serious abuse of process […]. It is clear that Wright deliberately created fake documents to support false claims and used the courts as a means of fraud,” the judge stated.
The facts of perjury may now be referred to the British prosecution. Mellor’s decision concludes the long-running process concerning intellectual rights to the technical document and code of the first cryptocurrency.
However, in a tweet on May 20, Wright announced his intention to appeal the decision and thanked his supporters for their backing.
I fully intend to appeal the decision of the court on the matter of the identity issue. I would like to acknowledge and thank all my supporters for their unwavering encouragement and support. In the meantime, I shall continue to work closely with the Teranode team to achieve…
— Dr Craig S Wright (@Dr_CSWright) May 20, 2024
In May 2022, Wright accused several cryptocurrency exchanges of trading “fake” Bitcoin. According to him, the only digital asset “that remains true to the original protocol” is Bitcoin SV.
In April 2020, he withdrew a defamation lawsuit against Blockstream CEO Adam Back and paid his costs. A similar decision was made by the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto in the case against Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, and later the court dismissed his appeal in a defamation case against podcaster Peter McCormack.
In March 2024, Judge Mellor refused to recognize Wright as the author of the Bitcoin white paper or Satoshi Nakamoto.