Craig Wright wants to prove that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.

A British judge has given Craig Wright the opportunity to prove once again that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.

The decision was made in the context of the case that sees Wright opposed to COPA (Crypto Open Patent Alliance). 

To tell the truth, Wright has already failed once in this attempt, but he claims to have recently found a USB key containing new documents in the bedside drawer. 

The ongoing case: Craig Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin

The COPA accuses Wright that his claims of being the real Satoshi Nakamoto are false. 

The case has been ongoing for a while, but in February it already seemed to have reached a conclusion with Wright’s defeat.

The problem lies in the copyright of the Bitcoin whitepaper and the Bitcoin v0.1 software released by Satoshi Nakamoto publicly in early 2009. Wright claims to be Nakamoto and therefore asserts the copyright over the document published in October 2008 and the 2009 software.

Previously, Wright had presented documents that, in his view, demonstrated that he was the real Satoshi, but COPA has submitted 50 pieces of evidence showing that many of the documents presented by Wright were actually forged.

Yesterday, however, Judge Justice Mellor, who presides over the trial, issued a new judgment with several important implications for the case.

The judge’s decisions

With yesterday’s ruling, the judge ordered Craig Wright to pay COPA 800,000 pounds as security for the incurred legal expenses.

It’s just a guarantee, but Wright will be forced to pay this amount if he wants to continue. 

In light of this, the judge will allow Craig Wright to present new documents that, in his opinion, would demonstrate his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto. 

It must be said that he has been trying for seven years without succeeding, and it is rather strange that after all this time and effort, a USB stick that was probably sitting on a nightstand for more than ten years and contains the definitive evidence comes out. 

Furthermore, in the past Wright has already tried to present falsified documentation to achieve his goal, so his credibility at this moment is at its lowest. 

The judge then set new dates for the trial.

The trial hearing will begin on January 29, 2024, while the proceedings are expected to conclude in March. 

The COPA

The Crypto Open Patent Alliance is an association that specifically focuses on keeping the patents underlying Bitcoin public and open.

What he is trying to do is not allow Craig Wright to take ownership of it, so that they remain fully and freely available to the entire humanity. After all, it was Satoshi Nakamoto himself who wanted to give his entire work to the global community, so a possible victory for Wright would actually be a defeat for Nakamoto. 

It should be remembered that Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym, and no one knows who he really was (he disappeared in 2011). 

The COPA includes very important companies, starting from Coinbase and reaching up to Meta (Facebook). It also includes Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy and Jack Dorsey’s Block. 

Therefore, the goal of COPA towards Craig Wright is well understood, and why they have presented to the judge the evidence that he has falsified part of the documentation he had submitted in an attempt to win the case. 

Satoshi Nakamoto: the copyright of Bitcoin

For obvious reasons, Satoshi Nakamoto has always wanted his work to be public and open, and above all owned by everyone. In fact, he never registered or patented it in his name. 

Instead, more than ten years later, a certain Craig Wright is actually trying to register it in his name, taking advantage of the fact that Satoshi has disappeared. 

In order to succeed, he must try to prove that he is Satoshi, and in the absence of Satoshi, this thing in theory could also eventually turn out to be possible. The only thing is that he has already had seven years since, in 2016, he publicly claimed for the first time to be Satoshi. 

So until 2016, that is, for the first seven years of its existence, Bitcoin was public and open, then Craig Wright came along claiming that it should instead be considered his own product, that is, the copyright belongs to him.

Obviously, if he continues to fail to prove that he is Satoshi, no judge will grant him the copyright on Bitcoin, just as already happened with the February ruling that seemed to be final.

However, in fact, faced with the hypothetical presence of new documentation, Judge Mellor had to at least give Wright the right to present it. 

However, it remains very difficult to imagine that the new documentation actually contains different information from the past ones, also because by now almost no one believes Wright’s promises anymore. 

For now, Bitcoin remains free, open, and public, and it will probably remain so even after March 2024.