Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who a UK High Court ruled in 2024 is not Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto, has renewed his criticism of the network's governance. He argues the base protocol should never change, warning that capacity limits push ordinary users toward centralized services. Wright's comments come despite his legal defeats, including a suspended prison sentence for contempt of court.
Why Wright says protocol must stay fixed
Wright argues that protocol immutability defines genuine decentralization. If a small group of developers can rewrite the rules, he says, the system stops being trustless. He also pointed out that a home node without hash power cannot produce blocks, order transactions, or compel the network to follow its preferences — meaning changes pushed by miners or developers don't reflect user consensus.
He noted that Bitcoin's marketing has shifted over time: from electronic cash to digital gold, then to store of value, and recently toward promises of generational wealth. In his view, capacity limits are driving ordinary users away from direct on-chain transactions and toward centralized services, reversing the system's original intent.
The court's 2024 ruling
The UK High Court ruled in March 2024 that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, finding he had forged documents on an extensive scale. He later received a suspended prison sentence for contempt of court after breaching orders related to that case. The ruling effectively ended his long-running claim to be Bitcoin's inventor, though he continues to speak publicly on the network's direction.
A decade of division
The underlying debates about scaling, protocol rigidity, and the balance of power between developers, miners, and users have divided Bitcoin for a decade. Wright's latest comments tap into that ongoing tension, even if his personal credibility is shot. The next major protocol change — whether a soft fork or a hard fork — will test these arguments again.
