Man behind false Bitcoin founder claim improperly used AI in appeal bid – judge

Computer scientist Dr Craig Wright has been ordered to pay £225,000 in legal costs by a judge after he was found to have “improperly used AI” in a failed bid to appeal against a High Court ruling that he is not the founder of Bitcoin.

Dr Wright lost a legal battle against Crypto Open Patent Alliance (Copa), a non-profit group including cryptocurrency firms, last year over claims that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym attributed to the person widely credited with establishing the cryptocurrency.

In March last year, a judge found that Dr Wright had “lied extensively” to support the false claim, with the Australian losing a bid to challenge the ruling at the Court of Appeal in November.

Copa and other groups of Bitcoin developers asked the Court of Appeal to rule that Dr Wright should pay their costs of opposing the appeal bids.

On Thursday, Lord Justice Arnold ordered Dr Wright to pay £100,000 of Copa’s costs, and £125,000 of the other developers’ costs.

In a court order, he said the sums were “appropriate” as Dr Wright’s appeal bids were “wholly without merit”.

He also said that Dr Wright had “improperly used AI to prepare his submissions, which risked significantly misleading the court”.

The judge continued that the “volume and complexity” of Dr Wright’s submissions were “exceptional, wholly unnecessary, and wholly disproportionate”.

He added: “There is reason to believe that Dr Wright pursued his applications in part for ulterior motives, and in particular in support of his publicity campaign.”

Copa previously sued Dr Wright over his claims that he was Satoshi, which a trial in London last year heard was a “brazen lie” supported by “forgery on an industrial scale”.

The original Bitcoin founding document, a white paper named Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, was released in 2008 and was authored under Satoshi’s name.

Lawyers for the computer scientist told the trial there was “clear evidence” demonstrating his creation of the digital currency but Mr Justice Mellor ruled last March that the evidence was “overwhelming” that his claim was false.

He also barred Dr Wright from launching or threatening further legal action related to Bitcoin through a court order.

In December, the same judge sentenced Dr Wright to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, for contempt of court, after finding that he had breached the order by issuing a new legal claim worth more than £900 billion.

It is understood that Thursday’s ruling may be one of the first in English civil courts where a party had been ordered to pay costs over their use of AI.

Phil Sherrell, partner at Bird & Bird, said: “Today’s costs order made against Wright was based, in part, on his illegitimate use of generative AI tools to create his appeal documents, which led to him relying on non-existent case law and a number of entirely false statements about the proceedings at first instance.

“This is a stark warning to litigants, and in particular litigants in person, about the risks of using generative AI tools to create court documents.”