According to Decrypt, a UK judge has ordered Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor, to provide evidence that he is the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. The order is part of a pre-trial review in the court case Wright, Wright International & Others v. BTC Core & Others. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is supporting claimants in the lawsuit against Wright, including the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), an industry body representing various companies developing the Bitcoin blockchain.
Last year, Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund to support developers targeted for lawsuits by Craig Wright's Tulip Trust Limited. The fund has backed 13 Bitcoin developers in two cases launched by Wright over the alleged theft of 111,000 Bitcoins that he claimed to own. The forthcoming trial will address the 'identity issue' of whether Dr. Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto.
The court has ordered Wright to provide printed proof of 95 documents dating back to 2007, which his attorneys claim are stored on a recently found Samsung USB drive that would prove he is Nakamoto. However, COPA asserts that the drives were purchased in 2015 or 2016 and couldn't have been used when Wright's claim said they were. The judge also ordered Wright to pay an additional $992,000 to COPA, Bitcoin developers, and companies named in the case against him. The trial was initially scheduled to begin on January 15, 2024, but the ruling has pushed the start date back at least a year to give Wright's legal team time to prepare.
