In a high-profile legal case, Craig Wright, a computer programmer, has presented a staggering 164,000 pages of evidence to the UK High Court of Justice to support his assertion that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) is challenging Wright’s claim, which has been met with skepticism by many in the cryptocurrency community. The case has brought forth testimonies from early Bitcoin contributors and the introduction of emails between Nakamoto and cryptographer Adam Back, which were made public for the first time.
The core of this story revolves around the ongoing debate over the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto and the implications of Wright’s claim on the Bitcoin community and its foundational patents. The evidence and testimonies presented in court aim to either validate or debunk Wright’s assertion, with significant consequences for the control and future of Bitcoin’s intellectual property.
During the proceedings, Martti Malmi, an early Bitcoiner, testified about his interactions with Nakamoto in 2009 but avoided confirming whether he had met Wright. Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream, was also questioned about his Hashcash project’s influence on Bitcoin’s creation. Back refuted any direct connection between HashCash and B-Money, another early digital currency concept, despite similarities in their reward systems for solving cryptographic puzzles.
The case has also unveiled a series of emails from 2008 and 2009 between Nakamoto and Back, which were shared with the press and on social media. These emails predate Bitcoin’s launch and include discussions about Back’s Hashcash proof-of-work algorithm, which was later incorporated into the Bitcoin protocol. Nakamoto’s correspondence with Back included a pre-release draft of the Bitcoin whitepaper and an invitation for feedback, indicating that Back was not Nakamoto despite some claims to the contrary.
