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'Satoshi' Craig Wright Is Being Sued For $10 Billion For Stealing His Partner's Bitcoin (coindesk.com)

Craig Wright, the nChain chief scientist who previously claimed to be the pseudonymous bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, is being sued for a whopping $10 billion for stealing $5 billion in bitcoin from a former business partner. CoinDesk reports: The lawsuit is being brought by Ira Kleiman on behalf of the estate of his brother, Dave, who has been linked to the earliest days of bitcoin. Kleiman, a forensic computer investigator and author, passed away in 2013 following a battle with MRSA. At the heart of the new lawsuit, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Feb. 14, is an alleged hoard of more than 1.1 million bitcoins, which Ira Kleiman's lawyers say is worth in excess of $10 billion. He is being represented by Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.

Wright, court records show, has been accused of allegedly conducting "a scheme against Dave's estate to seize Dave's bitcoins and his rights to certain intellectual property associated with the Bitcoin technology." "As part of this plan, Craig forged a series of contracts that purported to transfer Dave's assets to Craig and/or companies controlled by him. Craig backdated these contracts and forged Dave's signature on them," attorneys for the plaintiff wrote. Included alongside the complaint are a number of additional filings, including the business registration for a firm called W&K Info Defense Research LLC, in which Kleiman and Wright were business partners. In addition to the roughly 1.1 million bitcoins, Ira Kleiman is also seeking compensation for the intellectual property his lawyers claim arose from the partnership between his deceased brother and Wright.

2 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Tells you what Bitcoin really is. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    how many in total are hoarded by the founders while the suckers who were late to the party bid up the value on a small handful of coins.

    Draw a black box around the Bitcoin ecosystem. This is what flows into the system:

    1a. Money from new investors

    This is what flows out of the system:

    1b. Money going to investors cashing out.
    2b. Money going to the miners for transaction fees.
    3b. Money going to power companies.

    1a = 1b + 2b + 3b

    So, since 2b>0 and 3b>0, obviously 1b<1a both now and in the long run.

    Now some of you may call me inconsistent, because in the past I have been a cheerleader for bitcoin. So what has changed? What has changed is that I have sold all my bitcoins and I no longer have any skin in the game.

  2. Ponzi scheme by OrangeTide · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Just because they used valid mathematics in the design doesn't mean it wasn't a Ponzi scheme all along.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire