‘Desperate’: Infamous Aussie crypto figure avoids jail

An Australian man who planted himself into one of the great mysteries of the digital age has been found in contempt of court.

The Australian man who falsely claimed to have invented Bitcoin has escaped prison after breaking court orders barring him from suing over the cryptocurrency’s origins.

Craig Wright was found in contempt at the High Court in London this week. In a decision released overnight Australian time, Justice James Mellor found that Wright clearly breached court orders issued earlier this year.

Wright had been ordered to stop suing Bitcoin developers over his claims to be the mysterious creator of the most widely known cryptocurrency.

However, a collective of tech and crypto firms took him to court, saying Wright had sent out intellectual property claims totalling more than $1.8 trillion after the earlier court order.

Craig Wright has been found in contempt of court by a British High Court Justice. Picture: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

In this week’s decision, Wright was sentenced to 12 months’ prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to pay $290,000 in costs within a fortnight. If the Brisbane-born computer scientist initiates any more legal proceedings over the intellectual property of Bitcoin, he could be imprisoned. Wright has three pending lawsuits of the same ilk.

Satoshi Nakamoto was the pseudonym the creator of Bitcoin used when the currency was introduced amid the 2008 financial crisis. Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto is, they hold more than one million Bitcoin ($150bn) in digital wallets created in 2009, meaning people can see when these inaugural funds are being moved, fuelling speculation on who the creator is.

The London courts ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto in a decision in May this year, claims Wright has been making since 2016.

The creator or creators of Bitcoin remain a mystery. Picture: NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Since the May ruling, Wright has been making “a desperate publicity stunt to keep his cultish supporters engaged”, lawyers for the Crypto Open Patent Alliance said in court.

The alliance filed the contempt proceedings on the basis Wright aimed to “terrorise” developers and maintain a false narrative about Bitcoin’s origins

Wright, 54, represented himself in court this week by video link and declined to tell the justice where in the world he was. Court documents show he was in either Singapore or Indonesia.

Wright has already lost the option to appeal the May decision barring him suing Bitcoin developers but indicated he would challenge this latest decision.

Documents he created to support his Bitcoin-invention claims were “technobabble” forgeries “on a grand scale”, the court previously found.

Originally published as ‘Desperate’: Infamous Aussie crypto figure avoids jail