COPA members tip their hand while on the Satoshi Trial (COPA v Wright) stand

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The third week of Crypto Open Patent Alliance 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.

Take the testimony of Steve Lee, who is a self-described ‘independent board member’ of COPA. Full-time, he works for a team called Spiral, which is itself under the umbrella of (and entirely funded by) Block (NASDAQ: SQ). Block, of course, is Jack Dorsey’s fintech group focusing particularly on payments and digital currencies. That’s the same Jack Dorsey who spearheaded the founding of COPA itself as well as the founding of the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, which is financially supporting the developers in this case and others.

Lee’s purpose in the case, judging by his witness statement, is to tell the court how Dr. Wright’s reemergence as Satoshi Nakamoto has had a chilling effect on Bitcoin development generally. Dr. Wright’s lead barrister Lord Grabiner KC, however, was more interested in using Lee’s time on the stand to investigate exactly how it is that COPA works, and how it is that a so-called patent alliance is single-mindedly focused on suing a computer scientist and inventor living in Surrey.

“You tell us [in your witness statement] that Spiral has no profit goal. So is it fair to treat Spiral as a not-for-profit?” asked Grabiner, his voice managing to boom through the courtroom without sounding particularly loud.

“Yes, we’re not technically a non-profit but the goal is not to generate profit,” answered Lee.

“But it does get an annual budget from Block, correct? What was that for 2023?”

Lee says it was about US$10 million for 2023, and raises about 20% a year.

“Presumably when that figure is arrived at, it’s the result of some planning between you and somebody at Block?”

Lee says that it is.

“And you’re the only person representing the Spiral team and dealing with the offices of senior people at Block to determine what the budget is?”

Lee again says that this is correct.

Lord Grabiner KC then quoted Lee’s witness statement, which says that Spiral, while having an annual budget from Block, have total independence and freedom to ‘promote our aims.’ “By ‘our aims’ you surely mean yours and Block’s?”

“I mean Spiral’s aims,” came Lee’s response.

Then Lord Grabiner KC returns with one of those pointed legal questions in which the question itself says more than the answer: “Why are you so enthusiastic to emphasize your independence?”

This question knocked Lee off-kilter. “It’s just that COPA is not exclusively for Block or any one company, it’s intended for anyone to join.”

Lord Grabiner KC then moved to another of COPA’s many contradictions: the involvement and then sudden departure of Meta (NASDAQ: META) from its ranks. Lord Grabiner KC started by showing Lee the COPA press release welcoming Meta as a board member in January 2022, where it describes it as the single biggest patent addition to date. Next he shows Lee the part of COPA’s website which says that members can only voluntarily withdraw from COPA after three years. Yet, Grabiner points out, they recently withdrew from COPA, didn’t they? Do you know why?

Lee answered that he does not know why. He insisted he was not part of the communication.

“You’re telling me that even though you’re a board member, you simply don’t know why Meta withdrew?”

This presumably another question in which the asking of it reveals more than the answer.

COPA’s confused account of its own creation and operation received more scrutiny as the week stretched on. It was perhaps the most notable part of Adam Back’s testimony. Back is a cryptographer and CEO of Blockstream and is being presented by COPA primarily to testify about unpublished communications he had with Satoshi Nakamoto. This, it is worth noting, has been a common prong of attack for COPA in its case against Dr. Wright: the key is to get people who don’t like Dr. Wright to publish old communications relevant to the time Satoshi either disappeared or returned in 2015, and then hope they can use that to poke holes in the recollection of some other witness, usually Dr. Wright.

In any case, Back was being offered by COPA for the specific purpose of testifying about his communications to Satoshi, as can be seen from his witness statement. Which is why one of Craig Orr KC’s (the other barrister representing Dr. Wright) first questions for Back was:

“You’re aware that Blockstream is 19th defendant in the Bitcoin Core claim by Dr Wright? And are also a member of COPA?”

Back confirms yes. “The history of Blockstream joining COPA is we had an initiative to protect Bitcoin-related work from non-practicing entities, to make a patent pack and put the technology in the public domain. COPA expanded on that, and we were able to bring other companies in. We were not aware of COPA starting the suit until it became public.”

“Yet you didn’t mention any of that in your witness statement,” inquires Orr KC.

Back umms and aahs about this question for a long moment before nonchalantly conceding that he didn’t. Orr went on:

“And by virtue of your involvement in Blockstream, it’s right to say you have a financial interest in seeing Dr. Wright defeated?”

“No,” said Back.

“It will promote Blockstream’s business if Dr. Wright loses this case, won’t it?”

“I view it as a public good to have an open, licensed tech ecosystem.”

Back’s answers, as well as Lee’s, contain a number of startling revelations which the Judge will almost certainly find very revealing about COPA and its motivation for attacking Dr. Wright.

First of all, we have two board members of COPA testifying against Dr. Wright in a case which will, if Dr. Wright succeeds in establishing his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto, turn the digital asset industry entirely on its head beginning with Back’s Blockstream and the Jack Dorsey-run Spiral/Block. Yet one of these fails to mention his company’s membership of COPA, which is the plaintiff in this very case, in his sworn witness statement. The other claims that, despite being the only individual COPA board member testifying in the case, he has no idea why the Alliance’s biggest member broke its membership terms in order to jump ship right on the eve of trial.

On top of that, Back tries to tell the court that he had no idea COPA was suing Dr. Wright until it appeared in the news. This he says despite COPA taking absolutely no action since its founding other than adding names to its roster and suing Dr. Wright in an attempt to have the court declare that he is not Satoshi. The only question arising from this is: if Back really had no idea that COPA was suing Dr. Wright, then what did he think the Alliance was for?

None of these individuals were able to shed any light on whether Dr. Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto or not. However, this confusing testimony does shed light on the fact that Justice Mellor and the High Court have almost no idea what the Crypto Open Patent Alliance is and most importantly why it is so hell-bent on destroying the reputation of Dr. Craig Wright. 

Set against the background of Dr. Wright’s settlement offer just before trial—and the speed with which COPA rejected it—it’s hard to imagine Justice Mellor taking the Alliance very seriously. The only members of COPA he has had the chance to hear from have been unwilling to commit to saying anything of substance about the Alliance’s inner workings to the point of absurdity.

The implication put forward by Dr. Wright’s team is crystal clear, however: this case is brought by a powerful collection of business interests for the sole purpose of making sure that Satoshi can never return to enforce his rights to significant parts of the digital asset industry. The individuals willing to show up to court on behalf of COPA are heavily invested in that outcome, whether they admit it or not. This is an organisation that has already rejected a resolution to the case that would allow the digital asset industry to grow unencumbered— so why are we here?

Let’s see if Justice Mellor got the point.

Check out all of the CoinGeek’s special reports on the Satoshi Trial (COPA v Wright).