Craig Wright's Satoshi claims are branded "a brazen lie" as five-week court battle over Bitcoin begins

COMPUTER scientist Craig S Wright's claims to have invented Bitcoin have been labelled "a brazen lie" by lawyers facing him at the Royal Courts of Justice.

The much-anticipated legal battle over who authored the 2008 Bitcoin whitepaper began today with opening statements from both parties.

Craig Wright is sticking by his long-held claim that he was the inventor of the original cryptocurrency and has always been the person behind the pseudonym Sataoshi Nakamoto. He further claims to own the whitepaper's copyright and, therefore, intellectual property rights relating to the Bitcoin blockchain.

However, opposing the 53-year-old Australian is the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey which has brought the case to London asking it to draw a line under the claims and state Craig Steven Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

Today's opening heralds what is expected to be a five-week hearing that will bring to an end eight years of claims, counter-claims, speculation and mudslinging after Wright publicly claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin.

COPA argues that, despite first revealing himself as 'Satoshi' in 2016, Wright has been completely unable to present genuine evidence or proof to back his claims up. The alliance also accuses Wright of regularly forging documents in an effort to support his claim.

Launching today's proceedings, COPA lawyer Jonathan Hough said Wright's claims were "a brazen lie, an elaborate false narrative supported by forgery on an industrial scale", adding there were "elements of Dr Wright's conduct that stray into farce".

"Dr Wright's conduct is also deadly serious. On the basis of his dishonest claim to be Satoshi, he has pursued claims he puts at hundreds of billions of dollars, including against numerous private individuals," he said.

Hough even cited allegations that Wright had produced forged documents using AI tool ChatGPT.

Wright, who will present his evidence tomorrow, denies all accusations.

His representative, Anthony Grabiner, briefed the court by stating his client possessed "clear evidence demonstrating his authorship of the whitepaper and creation of Bitcoin".

"If Dr Wright were not Satoshi, the real Satoshi would have been expected to come forward to counter the claim," he argued after saying it was "striking" no other individuals had publicly claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

Case continues.

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