Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin, has been ordered to pay £225,000 ($290,000) in legal costs after a judge found he had used artificial intelligence (AI) improperly in a failed appeal.
This is believed to be the first time someone has been penalized for using AI in UK civil courts.
Dr. Wright has always said he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious and pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. But in May 2024 the High Court ruled that he had “lied extensively” to support his claim. Despite this, he tried to appeal but his case was dismissed in November 2024.
The Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a group of digital asset firms and developers, opposed Wright’s appeal and later asked him to pay their legal costs. On March 7, 2025 Lord Justice Arnold ordered Wright to pay £100,000 to COPA and £125,000 to various Bitcoin developers.
One of the key points in the ruling was Wright’s misuse of AI in his appeal submissions.
Lord Justice Arnold said Wright’s submissions were “exceptional, wholly unnecessary, and wholly disproportionate”. He added that Wright’s AI-generated legal documents “risked significantly misleading the court” by referring to non-existent cases, laws, and false statements.
Legal experts say this is a warning to anyone using AI-generated content in court. Phil Sherrell, a partner at Bird & Bird said: “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.”
This isn’t the first time Wright has been in legal trouble.
In December 2024 he was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, for contempt of court. This was after he launched a new lawsuit worth over £900 billion despite a court order stopping him from bringing any more cases related to Bitcoin.
COPA also applied for a general civil restraint order against Wright, stopping him from suing for three years.
Jonathan Hough KC representing COPA said Wright had a history of bringing frivolous lawsuits that caused “serious distress, inconvenience, and cost” to individuals and companies in the Bitcoin space.
He called Wright’s actions “legal terrorism” and said his actions had used up “significant court resources, running to nearly 100 court days in this jurisdiction”.
Wright’s legal woes are piling up. He claims to be the one who wrote the original Bitcoin white paper published in 2008 under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. But multiple court rulings have confirmed Wright is not the real creator of Bitcoin.
Despite the legal setbacks Wright still claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto. But with legal bills mounting, a suspended prison sentence and now a ban on filing further lawsuits, his options are running out fast.
