Craig Wright Faces Demand for Two-Year Prison Sentence in Contempt-of-Court Case

Craig Wright, who falsely claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, is in court again.

This time, the Crypto Open Patent Alliances is arguing Wright’s attempt to sue for 900 million pounds ($1.1 billion) over intellectual property rights related to the Bitcoin system in October amounts to contempt of court after a judge ruled in July that he was barred from pursuing proceedings related to his claim to be Nakamoto.

The two-day trial is due to end later Thursday and COPA, whose backers include Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), is seeking a prison sentence.

“COPA proposes an order committing Dr Wright for an initial term of 18 months and a further term of six months in the event that he does not mitigate his contempt by promptly discontinuing the claims which breach the order,” COPA set out in its skeleton argument, court documents show.

In March, Justice James Mellor ruled that Wright was not Satoshi Nakamoto. Mellor then issued a court order preventing Wright from pursuing proceedings in the U.K. and other jurisdictions related to the claim.

“Dr. Wright is perfectly capable, once the dust has settled, of ramping up his public pronouncements again,” Mellor wrote at the time.

Prior to COPA’s victory, Wright had brought several court cases against the bitcoin community around the bitcoin whitepaper, libel suits as well as claims against developers.