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

Posted by BeauHD on from the business-dealings dept.

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.

11 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Tells you what Bitcoin really is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's currently about 17 million bitcoins in existence. So if just one of these early players has 1.1 million of them, 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.

    1. Re:Tells you what Bitcoin really is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      This hierarchical structure you're lamenting about exists at every level of society and has since the existence of our species. The innovators or the tyrants tend to obtain a larger portion of the pie. Wealth itself, be it USD, Euro, real-estate or anything else is concentrated. This applies to skills too. The top 100 chess players win almost everything. The top 100 tennis players win almost everything. Federer has won more grand slams than I can count and so has Serena. Around 100 or fewer programmers designed the fundamentals of operating systems such as Unix & Linux, the same applies to the internet and even popular programming languages. We are not all equal in our abilities and even when abilities match, ambition doesn't (and neither does the willingness to be unethical for climbing some fairly artificial hierarchy). This isn't a Bitcoin problem.

      This is the way it has always been except when social engineering was used to change it - such as in communism. Those systems are infinitely more damaging in every way through and suck the life out of the human soul. They artificially place people in positions they aren't as competent in (thus contributing less to society than a worthy candidate), they suck competitive drive like vacuum and creativity along with it, they tend to lead to massive self-censorship - with people turning on each other as a means to fight for privilege within the party, they're woefully inefficient etc. As someone who came from a communist country, it's actually sad to see how many of those ideas are entertained in today's political landscape.

      BTW: At least unlike Zcash for instance, the creators didn't just decide "we get x% of the supply". It still had to be mined and their advantage came from being here first. The same is true for Monero - which is one in which developers have consistently done what's right for the project rather than what would give them the biggest slice of the profits. Ripple isn't decentralized or trustless and the founders hoarded a mind-boggling amount of the supply in a trust - I think it was something like 50% of the supply. Bitcoin is pretty good in this regard compared to many others.

    2. 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.

    3. Re: Tells you what Bitcoin really is. by thegreatbob · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dave Kleiman died in 2013, hence references to his estate in TFS... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Noting this less for the AC and more for anyone confused by AC.

      --
      There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  2. If a pretend tree falls in the forest, did it fall by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The key problem here is one factor, valuation.

    It has no intrinsic value.

    It only has inferred value.

    The value depends on the market, if and when such a market is in existence.

    It's worth at least one-percent of a wooden vessel cargo pallet of tulips.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. Re:If a pretend tree falls in the forest, did it f by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    spoken like someone who doesn't understand what money is

    Money is power backed by the organization which grants you resources. Bitcoin is a mathematical expression of the powerless pretending that they have both power and resources.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  4. "'I am not the Dread Pirate Satoshi,' he said." by ToTheStars · · Score: 3, Funny

    "'My name is Craig; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Satoshi, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Satoshi either. His name was Ulbricht. The real Satoshi has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Second Life.' Then he explained the name is the important thing to inspire the necessary fear. You see, no one would ever surrender to the Dread Pirate Craig."

  5. Where ever there is a lot of money ... by Alain+Williams · · Score: 2

    you will find a lawyer earning a fee by trying to get some of it ...

  6. If only there is a way to ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wonder if there is a way to authenticate documents and calculate some kind of hash that makes it impossible to back date ....

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  7. 10 billion what? by Locke2005 · · Score: 2

    Is he suing for $10 billion in bitcoin, or $10 billion in real money?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  8. Wouldn't there be a record in the block chain? by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 2

    If a million bitcoins were transferred, then wouldn't that show up in the block chain?
    If they weren't transferred, then doesn't he still have them?
    Can the estate digitally sign something that at least proves original ownership?

    What exactly is he claiming was taken?