The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym for the elusive creator of Bitcoin, remains a mystery — because he's definitely and legally not Craig Wright.
Whether prosecutors decide to pursue these charges remains to be seen. But by a judge's order, he's no longer allowed to publicly claim to be Satoshi — which forced Wright to issue an embarrassing legal notice on his website and his Twitter page, in very loud all-caps. Crypto companies, not eager to let who they saw as a quack get a slice of their pie — not to mention undermine crypto's principles of being open source and decentralized — fired back this year with ain which Wright began to dig himself into a deeper hole. A brutal cross-examination was the shovel: he was presented with hundreds of botched Bitcoin documents and had to explain why, as this supposed crypto savant, he had made so many obvious errors in writing them.
"Dr. Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person," the judge wrote in his ruling. "However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is."The worst of it may be yet to come for Wright. Per the High Court judge's referral, the UK's Crown Prosecution Service may pursue criminal charges against Wright for perjury.