Satoshi Craig Wright is accused of stealing 1.1 million bitcoins from Dave Kleiman

Dr. Craig Wright

The new story has been acquired by the story of the notorious Dr. Craig Wright, a leading scientist at nChain , who is now developing an alternative to Bitcoin Core. He became known to the whole world in 2015, when journalists suspected that he was hiding under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Reporters examined Craig's personal documents and correspondence when an unknown hacker hacked into his work email. These documents became the “evidence” against Wright-Nakamoto. A few months later, Craig Wright confirmed that he was really Satoshi Nakamoto - and provided fake evidence , for which he was obstructed by the bitcoin community and left the stage. Although not abandoned their statements.

During the 2015 investigation, journalists also suggested that digital forensics specialist Dave Kleiman, who died in 2013 after becoming infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, may be related to creating Bitcoin. Apparently, he, as one of the creators of Bitcoin, owned a large number of coins, naminennyh at an early stage.
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Now, these suspicions and the findings of the 2015 investigation are partially confirmed. Ira Kleiman (Ira Kleiman) on behalf of his deceased brother Dave sued Craig Wright, accusing the latter of stealing 1.1 million Bitcoins and intellectual property.

The claim (pdf) filed with the Federal District Court for the Southern District of California. It states that Dave and Craig jointly controlled over a total of 1.1 million bitcoins through the W & K joint trust fund. The correspondence between the partners, which got into the press after the above-mentioned hacking of the mail account, makes it clear that they naminated these coins at an early stage immediately after the launch of the Bitcoin system. In the quoted letter, Craig asks colleagues after Dave's death to monitor the safety of his business partner's hard drives and check for bitcoin wallets there.

Later, the accused explained that he just wanted to make sure of the safety of the funds, and was not at all about to assign the bitcoins. However, later, the Australian Tax Office investigator said that at a meeting of ATO investigators with Wright's accountant, Wright made it clear that Dave's bitcoins were at his disposal.

Accountant Craig Wright confirmed that his ward was actively mine Bitcoins since 2009 and at some point owned 10% of all coins that are in circulation, about 1.1 million. According to him, the late Kleiman said about the same amount.

As one of the clues, Ira Kleiman provided a copy of the postal correspondence between him and Craig Wright from 2014. In one of the letters, he admits that in a joint trust with Dave they had about 1 million bitcoins, of which 300,000 belonged to Dave and 700,000 to Craig.



Ira Kleiman hopes that the investigation will establish the exact amount of funds that Craig Wright stole from the joint fund after the death of his brother. But it can be assumed that this amount may be more than 1.1 million bitcoins, which at the current rate exceeds $ 10 billion (although it is clear that such an amount cannot be cashed out in one step).

It should be noted that Ira is represented by well-known law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, which participated in many high-profile trials, including the Bush v. Gore trial after the presidential election of 2000, where the loser candidate Gore accused the victor with a minimal advantage of Bush in rigging Florida voting, which decided the outcome of the election (the governor of Florida was the younger brother of the president).

According to Ira Kleiman, the defendant confiscated the bitcoins of his brother, and also appropriated some intellectual property on the Bitcoin technology, including the program code. Perhaps now Dr. Wright is using this intellectual property when developing an alternative version of Bitcoin Core, which his company nChain is working on.

The plaintiff demands the return of 1.1 million Bitcoins and the payment of compensation for the stolen intellectual property.

Interestingly, the lawsuit does not raise the question of which of the two partners presented themselves at the forum as Satoshi Nakamoto (Craig himself, Dave, or both of them, or neither of them). But during the trial, this mystery may become clear.