February 27, 2018

Kleiman v Craig Wright: The bitcoins that never were

Today some news landed about a $10B lawsuit against Craig Wright (the Australian man who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin), and it is an interesting read, but unfortunately for anyone involved, its claims have little basis in reality. The lawsuit purports that Wright fraudulently acquired large number of bitcoins owned by Dave Kleiman through forging various documents, but the very existence of those bitcoins in the first place is just another fantasy.

I had previously seen some of the material included as exhibits in the lawsuit, and my opinion was that all the documents that made specific testable claims as to owning bitcoins were relatively easy to debunk as simple backdated forgeries (possibly for use in Wright's alleged tax fraud schemes). I Am Not A Lawyer, but it seems somewhat fitting that Wright now finds himself sued by someone taking many of those claims at face value, as Wright's seemingly only defense would be to allow those prior claims to be proven false.