Satoshi Trial (COPA v Wright): UK court rules Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto
With Judge Mellor’s ruling on Thursday, COPA’s years-long campaign against Dr. Wright has come to a close—pending any appeal by Dr. Wright.
With Judge Mellor’s ruling on Thursday, COPA’s years-long campaign against Dr. Wright has come to a close—pending any appeal by Dr. Wright.
The flurry of public interest on the COPA v Wright trial in London has shone a light on the tricky concept of open justice, a bedrock principle of any democratic society.
Through three weeks of COPA v Wright, one factor has hovered over the proceedings like a phantom: hundreds of documents submitted into evidence which the COPA says were forged by Dr. Craig Wright.
Christen Ager-Hanssen's dismissal as nChain CEO is said to have been rooted in his plans to get Dr. Craig Wright's IP, even going beyond organizing a mock trial to threaten witnesses and unauthorized access to the BDO drive.
The third week of COPA v Wright saw individual COPA members put on the stand in front of Justice Mellor. This was Mellor’s first chance to see the true extent of the circus that has dedicated itself to attack Dr. Craig Wright and his status as the inventor of Bitcoin.
A number of witnesses took the stand for Dr. Craig Wright in London’s COPA v Wright trial, telling the court in various ways that their experience with Dr. Wright before the public release of the Bitcoin White Paper makes him a likely candidate to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
By the end of the first week of London’s COPA v Wright trial, it had become clear that Hough KC and COPA were left with a fatal conundrum: what do you put to the man who knows everything?
Perhaps the biggest surprise of COPA v Wright’s opening week is that it saw very little of the explosive anger or verbal jousting that many had imagined for a trial which has the future of the digital asset industry as its stakes.
After three days with Dr. Craig Wright on the stand in the U.K. courtroom, COPA’s attorney Jonathan Hough KC has repeatedly accuses Dr. Wright of manipulating documents he says proves his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
The COPA v Wright trial begins in earnest, with both sides giving their opening arguments to a packed London court where the battle over the identity of Bitcoin’s inventor—and the future of the entire digital asset industry—will be decided.
The Jack Dorsey-led Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) will appear in court in London to try and convince a judge that Dr. Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym behind the invention of Bitcoin.
Though the offer drew plenty of comment, it will take time before the full implications of the settlement offer (and its rejection by COPA) are fully digested by the public.