As noted above, Dr Wright has been involved in various pieces of relevant litigation, in which Judgments have been delivered. Such Judgments are conclusive evidence of their existence, date and legal effects, and they are also admissible evidence of what happened in the proceedings they describe: see Phipson on Evidence at §§43-01 to 43-02. Thus, Judge Reinhart’s Judgment of August 2021 in the Kleiman litigation is admissible in describing the account Dr Wright gave of putting assets out of his reach and the “bonded courier” story he gave. However, Judgments in other proceedings are not admissible for the purpose of proving that the other judges’ assessments and findings are correct: the rule in Hollington v Hewthorn [1943] KB 857.

In this case, Dr Wright relies on numerous documents said to be or to have been contemporaneous to support his claim to be Satoshi. However, the contemporaneous documents on which Dr Wright relies are themselves said by COPA and the Developers to be suspect. In many cases, more than merely suspect: I have heard a significant amount of evidence directed to allegations that all of the most important documents on which Dr Wright relies are forgeries. For case management reasons, at earlier stages in this litigation I limited the number of forgery allegations which COPA were allowed to level against Dr Wright and his documents. However, those limits do not prevent COPA from alleging additional documents are inauthentic or unreliable.

It is clear that Dr Wright has a well-developed ability to persuade people of his technical acumen, when they do not fully understand what he is talking about. In other words, he can talk a good story. His ability should not come as a surprise because he has been working for over a decade to establish himself as Satoshi Nakamoto. However, when his story is exposed to detailed forensic analysis, as occurred during this trial, it is found to be riddled with inconsistencies, but, most importantly, to be founded on a whole series of documents which I find to have been either forged or to be unreliable. The detail of my findings is set out below.