In year 2016, Craig Wright, who is an Australian computer scientist, abruptly appeared and told everyone he was an Satoshi Nakamoto, the main person who made the Bitcoin. For some minutes there were some media groups who accepted this however most people in crypto world began to realize that his “proof” was suspicious. The papers he showed, claiming they come from early times of Bitcoin, had an odd LaTeX formatting; actual Satoshi did not use this format at all. People saw that as pretty large warning.
Bitcoin’s idea is focused on decentralization. Satoshi was supposed to leave and that was meant to show no individual leader or owner can take charge and say, “This is all mine actually.” Wright’s attitude was opposite and strange. It felt like he wanted everyone to notice him, he wanted the intellectual property rights, and to be the main controller, these are things that whole design of Bitcoin is against.
Next came lawsuits, and there were many. He targeted software makers, companies such as the Coinbase plus Kraken, podcasts and even more businesses. Mainly it was for things related to copyright or insults. Devs who worked independently started to lose time and also spend money only to try defending. A new term appeared — “legal terrorism,” and many people thought the label was actually quite fitting.
This situation grew into a big legal battle: COPA vs. Craig Wright in 2024. COPA is an organization that’s supported by firms like Block and their approach was, “Let’s finish this problem totally.” When court checked Wright’s evidence, the judge stated it was forged documents on huge scale. That sentence will probably be stuck to the name of him always.
By March 2024, the result was finalized: Craig Wright is not Satoshi, did not create Bitcoin at all, and did not author whitepaper. He was caught lying to court on several occasions, and the judge referred him for probably committing an perjury.
Maybe the best result is way this chaos pulled open-source crowd together. The success of the COPA now acts like kind of legal protection to stop others from trying to claim Bitcoin in times to come. After almost ten years of loud arguments, the issue is finished, which means identity of Satoshi remains hidden.
