A man who claims to be the creator of Bitcoin (BTC) has been declared in contempt of court in the UK. Australian computer scientist Craig Wright has been handed a one-year sentence, suspended for two years, for filing a $1.2 trillion lawsuit against the payments firm Block.
The judge says Wright violated a previous court order designed to keep him from filing further legal actions. The suspended sentence essentially means Wright would avoid jail if he meets certain conditions and does not commit another offense, although the judge noted Wright is living abroad in Asia and is likely not within jurisdiction of the court.
Earlier this year, a UK judge ruled that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Wright is neither Satoshi nor the author of the Bitcoin white paper after he was sued by the nonprofit crypto advocacy group Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) for filing frivolous lawsuits against Bitcoin developers.
In November, COPA went on to claim that Wright violated an injunction by filing a lawsuit against Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s payments firm. According to the report, the injunction was set in place to prevent Wright from filing BTC-related lawsuits on the grounds that he is Satoshi and Judge James Mellor found Wright to be in contempt of court following a hearing Wednesday.
Mellor also handed him a one year sentence suspended for two years – meaning that Wright will not immediately have to serve time provided he meets certain conditions – and threw out the lawsuit against Block. Wright said that he would appeal being found guilty of contempt of court.
