Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin, arrives at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, Friday, June 28, 2019.
Saul Martinez | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON — Craig Wright, an Australian who calls himself BitcoinOn Tuesday, he was handed over to British prosecutors on suspicion of perjury.
On Tuesday, British High Court Judge James Mellor decided to transfer the case against Wright’s claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin to the Crown Prosecution Service, which prosecutes criminal cases investigated by police in England and Wales.
The Crown Prosecution Service will now consider whether Wright should be charged with what Mailer described as “massive perjury and falsification of documents” and decide whether an arrest warrant and possible extradition are needed.
Wright has remained silent since the high court ruling, claiming he lied “extensively and repeatedly” in his attempts to prove he is Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.
Wright is seeking to prove in the London court case that he is the original inventor of Bitcoin and therefore has intellectual property rights, including copyright ownership of the Bitcoin white paper and the initial version of the Bitcoin software. The Bitcoin protocol is a decentralized, open-source network that no single entity controls.
Judge Mailer ruled that Wright had attempted to create a false narrative through “massive” forgery of documents and use them as evidence in court.
He added that Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, brought through legal proceedings in the UK, Norway and the US, was the “most egregious abuse” of the court process.
Wright’s holding company, Tulip Trading, had no immediate comment when contacted by CNBC.
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