A UK Judge is freezing $7.6 million worth of computer scientist Crag Wright’s assets after he was ruled to not be Satoshi, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC).
New court documents reveal that the judge has ordered a worldwide freeze of over £6 million worth of Wright’s assets as a means of preventing him from skirting court costs.
According to the judge, Wright may move his assets to Singapore as a means of avoiding court costs. As stated in the court documents by the judge,
“On Monday 18th March, Dr. Wright filed a form at Companies House in respect of his company RCJBR Holding PLC, by which form he notified Companies House that his shares in RCJBR had been transferred to DeMorgan PTE, a company organized under the laws of Singapore.
Understandably, that gave rise to serious concerns on COPA’s (Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance) part that Dr. Wright was implementing measures to seek to evade the costs consequences of his loss at trial.”
Furthermore, the judge notes instances in the past where Wright has failed to make payments he was ordered to, including a $140 million judgment debt in the US and nearly $400,000 in Norway.
Earlier this month, Wright was sued by COPA, a nonprofit crypto advocacy group, for claiming to be the pseudonymous creator of BTC. At the time, the judge ruled that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Wright was in fact not Satoshi nor the author of the BTC White Paper, the original thesis of Bitcoin written in 2008.
After winning in court, COPA released a statement saying,
“This decision is a win for developers, for the entire open source community, and for the truth. For over eight years, Dr. Wright and his financial backers have lied about his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto and used that lie to bully and intimidate developers in the Bitcoin community.
That ends today with the court’s ruling that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Don't Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inboxFeatured Image: Shutterstock/robertedit949/Natalia Siiatovskaia