UK Court of Appeal Upholds Previous Ruling in Defamation Case Brought by Craig Wright, Self-Proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, Against Peter McCormack

The UK Court of Appeal upheld the previous ruling in the defamation case of the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto — Craig Wright — against the Bitcoin podcast host Peter McCormack.

Wright filed a defamation claim in 2019. He sought £100,000 in damages and to cover his legal costs. In August 2022 he was awarded £1, citing “inadequate” and “knowingly false” statements.

Following ‘Satoshi,’ he said he would appeal, arguing the court had not taken into account his diagnosed autism spectrum disorder. For this reason, he said, his evidence had been misinterpreted.

Additionally, on 25 July the British court expressed doubts about the ability of the businessman or his investment company to cover future procedural costs.

Wright must pay £400,000 to continue the proceedings against the cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. If he fails to do so, the case will be struck out within two weeks.

In May 2022 he accused platforms of trading ‘fake’ Bitcoin. According to him, the only digital asset that remains true to the original protocol is Bitcoin Satoshi Vision.

In April 2020, Wright dropped the defamation claim against Blockstream CEO Adam Back and paid his costs.

A similar ruling by the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto was issued in the case against Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

In June 2021 Wright won the court case over the Bitcoin white paper against Cobra. He was barred from infringing copyright in the United Kingdom, including by enabling the download of the white paper from Bitcoin.org or by any other means.

In 2019 Wright registered the copyright in the Bitcoin white paper and the source code. Later the U.S. Copyright Office clarified that it did not recognise him as the creator of Bitcoin.