During a cross-examination on Friday in the U.K. trial concerning his claims to have invented Bitcoin, Craig Wright accused detractors of eavesdropping his house and spoofing an email he has been accused of doctoring.
Spoofing is the process of altering an email’s information to appear as though it was sent from a different address, among other things.
Wright responded, “Unfortunately not,” when asked by presiding Judge James Mellor if he could identify the person who carried out the spoofing. My Lord, I suspect quite a few people.
The Australian computer scientist has long maintained that he is the anonymous creator of the whitepaper, which served as the basis for Bitcoin. His name is Satoshi Nakamoto. Several Bitcoin developers and the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a consortium of industry participants, filed a lawsuit against Wright, claiming that in an attempt to establish his identity as Satoshi, he had engaged in “industrial scale” forgeries.
Wright angrily refuted COPA’s claims on Friday that he had manipulated the email in question to bolster a declaration he had made in court the week before about his former Ontier attorneys.
Wright instead attributed the timestamp and other anomalies to hacking, spam folders, domain migrations, email spoofing, and surveillance.
Judge Mellor questioned Wright about why someone trying to destroy him would fabricate an email to back up a statement he had made. Wright stated, “Oh, no.” It is not supportive.
He claimed that a malevolent actor had altered the email in order to provide a justification for calling him back into court.
Following Wright, Patrick Madden, an expert witness for COPA, took the stand once more to explain his updated interpretation of the Ontier emails. Wright’s attorney aimed to prove that spoofing was simple to perform.
Madden said he didn’t think the email could have been hoax when asked whether it could have been by Craig Orr, Wright’s attorney. Madden remarked, “I don’t think that’s practical to consider.”
The last day to discuss the evidence was Friday. On March 12, the trial will continue to hear closing arguments from both sides.