Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who claims to be the blockchain innovator Satoshi Nakamoto and the owner of the concepts underpinning Bitcoin, has been ordered to pay 400,000 British pounds ($516,000) in security for legal costs to pursue claims against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. According to James Mellor, a judge at the England and Wales High Court, Wright’s financial position was not convincing enough to meet the potentially substantial legal costs.
The evidence “does not persuade me” that Wright or his investment company have liquid assets to meet potentially substantial legal costs, said Mellor. Wright claims to own the goodwill in the term “Bitcoin”, and that Coinbase and Kraken, by allowing trading in bitcoin (BTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH), are damaging the brand of rival cryptocurrency bitcoin satoshi vision (BSV).
Mellor also cited statements made by Wright that he had made himself financially “untouchable” by using a trust to shift assets and testimony allegedly inconsistent with that given in parallel U.S. court proceedings involving former business partner Ira Kleiman. In October, an Oslo court ruled Twitter user Hodlonaut had been within his rights to post 2019 tweets calling Wright a “fraud” and “scammer” for saying he was Nakamoto, author of the 2008 Bitcoin White Paper.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Kraken said that the ruling “is an important win in our defense against Wright’s claims to control Bitcoin.” “Satoshi never meant for a single person to control Bitcoin, which is why he released the Bitcoin software under open-source licenses for the world’s benefit,” the spokesperson added.