Self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor wins legal battle and pockets US$56 billion – Irish Tech News – Irish Tech News
The rise of Bitcoin has been one of the most exciting stories of the past decade and one of the most mysterious. It began in late 2008 with someone named Satoshi Nakamoto publishing Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System on a cryptography-focused mailing list. However, it soon became apparent that Nakamoto was merely a pseudonym and, to this day, Nakamoto’s identity remains the holy grail for many cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
A recent Florida court case may shed some light on the question. According to allegations in Ira Kleiman v. Craig Wright, Satoshi Nakamoto is an Australian programmer named Craig Steven Wright. The family of Wright’s former business associate, David Kleiman, claimed that Wright owed Kleiman’s estate half of Wright’s 1.1 million bitcoins, then valued at over $56 billion. The jury sided mostly with Wright, leaving him with complete control over the bitcoin stash.
These coins were the first-ever mined bitcoins. But does that substantiate Wright’s claim that he is the founder of the most dominant cryptocurrency in the world? Has the enduring mystery of Nakamoto been solved? And with more than $50 billion in his pocket, does it really matter to Wright or the cryptocurrency community at large?
While the case was nominally about money, enthusiasts see more far-reaching implications for cryptocurrency and fintech. If Wright is the inventor of Bitcoin, the most valuable and widely accepted cryptocurrency, then one of tech’s longest-lasting mysteries is solved.
So who are the people involved?
Craig Wright is an experienced IT and security expert. He has been a prolific speaker and author on Bitcoin and digital currency. He also taught computer science at the university level in Australia and holds over 3000 blockchain-related patents.
David Kleiman also was a talented IT security and cryptography expert. Among his accomplishments was creating a Windows encryption tool adopted by many U.S. government agencies, including the Treasury Department, the Postal Service and NASA. Kleiman died in 2013 after more than two years of hospitalization due to complications resulting from injuries he suffered in a 1995 motorcycle accident.
While many facts in the case remain in dispute, it is clear that Wright and Kleiman became friends around the mid-1990s, well before the creation of Bitcoin. What they were beyond that is where things get murky. And it is this relationship that was the basis for the lawsuit. According to Kleiman’s family, Wright and Kleiman were formal business partners, which entitled Kleiman to some of the proceeds of their business.
There is substantial evidence that Wright and Kleiman worked together in 2009 to mine the disputed bitcoin in a joint venture called W&K Info Defense Research LLC (W for Wright, K for Kleiman). Hundreds of e-mails between Wright and Kleiman, Kleiman’s family, and others, including Australian government authorities, repeatedly show Wright referring to Kleiman as his partner and best friend.
Wright argued that no formal partnership ever existed. According to his attorneys, Wright has autism (only diagnosed in 2018), which affects his understanding of the significance of terms like partner.
Following a lengthy trial, a Florida jury found that Wright was not liable for any of the claims of breach of partnership, fraud or civil theft. However, it did find that he owed W&K $100 million for conversion (a fancy legal term for theft) of the company’s intellectual property.
Much of the evidence developed during the case is under seal and inaccessible. However, enough has made it into the public domain, both through court filings and the trial itself, to heighten the debate as to whether Wright is Nakamoto, the inventor of the world’s most popular digital currency.
One of the more intriguing e-mails that came to light was from Wright to Kleiman’s father shortly after Kleiman’s death. In this e-mail, Wright claimed, “Your son and I are two of the three key people behind Bitcoin.” He then told the elder Kleiman to find and preserve Dave’s wallet, which would be a private crypto wallet separate from the most common and secure crypto wallets used by the general public.
Photo by Shutter_Speed on Pixabay
Who is the third person? Wright’s deposition testimony is sealed, but we know that Wright refused to identify the third person due to “national security” concerns. Wright claimed the person was a U.S. government informer who may now be dead. But rather than substantiating Nakamoto’s identity, this email and the related testimony only create new questions.
Other evidence reinforces questions about Wright’s claims. One forensics expert testified that many of the emails in the case were forgeries, including an e-mail where Wright requests Kleiman’s assistance in editing a paper on a new form of electronic money. Bit cash, Bitcoin….” The email appeared to originate in 2008 from one of Wright’s personal domains, @rcjbr.og. The domain at issue, however, did not exist before 2011. The source of the forgery remains another mystery in the case.
Perhaps more damaging to Wright’s claim is the evidence that doesn’t exist. Wright has never offered any definitive proof that he is Nakamoto. Despite the numerous e-mails between Wright and Kleiman, none contain any drafts of the actual Nakamoto paper posted in 2008.
Wright also has never proved that he registered the bitcoin.com domain in 2008, nor has he ever disclosed private keys known to belong to Nakamoto, despite assurances that he would do so. One trial witness, a Bitcoin developer named Gavin Andersen, testified that “the gobbledygook proof [Wright] published was certainly a deception, it is not an outright lie.” Nonetheless, Andersen believes that Wright is likely Nakamoto.
The complete list of discrepancies and questions is far more than we can cover here. For those interested, the publicly available documents from the case are the stuff of a Dan Brown novel. But, suffice it to say that despite Wright’s lawyers’ assertions that the jury verdict definitively proves Wright and Nakamoto are one and the same, the evidence does little to solve the questions.
The short answer is that it doesn’t. The case didn’t turn on whether Wright or Kleiman was Nakamoto. Pending any possible appeals in the future, Wright is the confirmed owner of billions of dollars in bitcoin. Kleiman’s brother, now the managing partner of W&K, walks away with $100 million. It is only the cryptocurrency diehards left unsatisfied. But frankly, at the end of the day, the cryptocurrency community may be just as happy to continue the mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, what is life without a little mystery?
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