UK court freezes $7.6 million worth of Craig Wright's assets to prevent court cost evasion
Quick Take
- A UK judge approved a so-called ‘worldwide freezing order’ for £6 million ($7.6 million) worth of Craig Wright’s assets.
- The freezing order is on behalf of Crypto Open Patent Alliance to help cover its $8,471,225 court costs for challenging Wright’s claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
- The move was triggered by Wright moving some of these assets out of the UK.
A UK judge approved the freezing of £6 million ($7.6 million) worth of Craig Wright's assets to prevent him from avoiding court costs related to his claim that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of the Bitcoin 
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The action was taken after Wright relocated some of his assets from the UK. This followed a court ruling concluding Wright was not Nakamoto, leading him to transfer shares of his London-based firm, RCJBR Holding, to a Singaporean company on March 18, according to a UK court document.
"Understandably, that gave rise to serious concerns on COPA’s part that Dr Wright was implementing measures to seek to evade the costs consequences of his loss at trial," Judge James Mellor wrote the document.
The judge approved the so-called 'worldwide freezing order' on behalf of Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to help cover COPA's overall court costs of $8,471,225 (£6,703,747.91.).
"Although I have not yet heard detailed argument on costs, it is undoubtedly the case that COPA (and the Developers) are the winning party," Mellor said. "They are highly likely (to say the least) to obtain an order for their costs."
Wright is an Australian computer scientist who used assertions of being Satoshi Nakamoto to issue copyright claims related to the Bitcoin network, such as requesting two websites take down the Bitcoin whitepaper in January 2021.
COPA sued Wright in April 2021, challenging his claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto and thus has copyright over Bitcoin. After hearing testimonies from early Bitcoin developers such as Martti Malmi and others, the same judge ruled that "overwhelming" evidence indicated that Wright is not Nakamoto on March 14 of this year, The Block previously reported.
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