Craig Wright loses appeal to Peter McCormack in Bitcoin libel case

Craig Wright, who continues to claim that he invented Bitcoin, has lost his appeal in the libel case against Peter McCormack.

Wright had accused McCormack of damaging his reputation through a series of tweets in 2019, when McCormack claimed that Wright was a fraud and did not invent Bitcoin. In the initial ruling, the court found that McCormack's comments were defamatory but based on Wright's conduct in the trial, reduced the damages to just £1.

The UK Court of Appeal upheld the previous ruling, stating that Wright failed to provide sufficient evidence to support his claims, according to a court filing today. 

“The judges agreed with the decision of Justice Chamberlain to reduce his damages to £1 for putting forward “deliberately false” evidence of serious harm,” McCormack said.

Multiple legal battles

This ruling could have further implications for Wright, who has been involved in several legal battles over his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, including against Magnus Granath, known as hodlonaut.

The news follows an order by UK judge James Mellor on Tuesday for Wright to deposit $516,000 as security for legal costs to continue his case against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. The judge said he wasn’t convinced about Wright's ability to cover legal costs citing previous inconsistent statements about his financial position, and warned that the case would be dismissed within weeks if the security isn't provided.