Craig Wright Receives Suspended Sentence for Contempt of Court

On November 19, a UK court sentenced Craig Wright to a 12-month suspended sentence for contempt of court. He is also required to pay approximately $180,000 in legal costs within 14 days.

The decision by Judge James Mellor follows a complaint from the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) lawyers in response to another lawsuit by Wright. In October, he claimed that the first cryptocurrency had “fundamentally deviated” from Satoshi Nakamoto’s ideas, that developers had deceived users, and that the “real Bitcoin” was his project, Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV).

This pertains to significant updates in Bitcoin’s code—SegWit and Taproot—which led to the creation of the BSV and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) forks.

In the lawsuit, he demanded that Bitcoin Core and Square developers pay the difference between the market capitalizations of BTC and BSV as compensation. At that time, it amounted to about $1.18 billion.

The court found that Wright violated a ban on legal action against Bitcoin developers and once again claimed to be Satoshi.

“It is rare for someone to file a lawsuit in the same court that issued a ban on such actions,” noted COPA legal advisor Tristan Sherliker in an interview with Decrypt.

According to him, Wright “chose exile,” so the standard penalty for such cases, a two-year prison sentence, is unlikely to be directly enforced. Instead, the judge opted for a suspended sentence and a fine.

If during this period the “pseudo-Satoshi” initiates legal action against developers on behalf of Bitcoin’s creator again, the suspended sentence will be replaced with one year of imprisonment.

At the time of the hearing, Wright was in Indonesia and refused to travel to the UK, citing travel costs. He also stated that he was in Asia “on business.” COPA lawyers offered to pay for an economy-class ticket, but he did not appear in court.

Following the official ban on using Nakamoto’s identity, Wright published a denial of involvement in the creation of the first cryptocurrency on his website. However, he continued to promote BSV as the “real Bitcoin” from a new account on X.

In July, the court threatened him with criminal charges for perjury and using the legal system as a “tool of fraud.”

Earlier in November, community members speculated that Satoshi Nakamoto had not disappeared but had become one of the largest Bitcoin whales.