An Australian computer scientist who claims to have invented bitcoin was found in contempt of court in the United Kingdom on Thursday after filing a £911 billion ($1.2 trillion) lawsuit against UK payments company Block. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
Craig Wright has claimed for years to be the author of a 2008 document describing bitcoin, published under the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto.”
But a London High Court judge concluded in May that Wright repeatedly lied and that he forged documents to support his claim in a lawsuit brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to stop Wright from suing bitcoin developers.
COPA argued that Wright’s recent lawsuit against Block and others violated an injunction that prevented Wright from pursuing further litigation based on the claim that he is Satoshi or that he has intellectual property rights to bitcoin.
The group’s lawyer, Jonathan Hough, told the court that Wright’s latest lawsuit is “a desperate publicity stunt to keep his cultist supporters engaged.”
Judge James Mellor ruled on Thursday that Wright was in contempt of court, following a hearing on Wednesday which Wright did not attend. Wright spoke remotely at the hearing, but declined to say which country he was in when asked by Mellor.
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The judge imposed a one-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, for what he said was a “flagrant breach” of the court order. Mellor also dismissed Wright’s lawsuit against Block and others.
Wright, who has said he will appeal the ruling that he was in contempt of court, was last month denied permission to appeal Mellor’s ruling that he did not invent bitcoin.
