A Florida jury has rejected claims that Craig Wright and David Kleiman formed a partnership to launch Bitcoin, thus ending a high-profile lawsuit revolving around the identity of the anonymous creator of the cryptocurrency, known as Satoshi Nakamoto. At the end of the trial, the mystery remained about the fate and ownership of a cache of about one million bitcoin units.
The civil lawsuit was first filed by the family of the deceased Kleiman, in which the family members claimed that he and Wright had established a business partnership called W&K Information Defense Research. As part of the partnership, the two created and launched Bitcoin in 2008 and 2009, using the Satoshi Nakamoto pen name, the plaintiffs claim.
After Kleiman’s death in 2013, according to the lawsuit, Wright hid Kleiman’s involvement in the coin launch. In the lawsuit, the family is seeking compensation that could have reached billions of dollars and would have forced Wright to sell some of the capital in an estimated bitcoin held by Nakamoto. Had this happened, an answer would have been given to the question of whether Wright – who for years claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin – was indeed involved in it.
The jury dismissed nine out of 10 allegations, including unfair enrichment, fraud, improper takeover and breach of obligations under partner frameworks thrown at Bright, a programmer of Australian descent who now lives in the UK. The plaintiffs won one of their claims, claiming that Wright converted for his personal use Bitcoin coins that belonged to the partnership. The jury awarded the estate of Kleiman, a Florida resident, $ 100 million in compensation for this charge.
“It was a very good decision and I feel my reputation has been completely cleared,” Wright said outside the court after the jury’s decision was announced.
The lawsuit dealt only to a limited extent with the nature of the short-lived business partnership. She has been more widely on Bitcoin, which Wright claims since 2016 has launched by using the pen name Satoshi Nakamoto.
The ruling reduces the likelihood that the mystery surrounding Nakamoto’s true identity will be resolved sometime soon.
In a written statement, prosecution attorneys Wall Friedman and Kyle Roche said they were “highly satisfied” with the $ 100 million compensation, which reflected the fact that “Craig Wright incorrectly took Bitcoin-related assets from the W&K partnership.”
The identity of the bitcoin creator will not be revealed soon
The ruling, however, makes at least reasonable the possibility that Kleiman will be forced to prove his claims that he created Bitcoin by selling coins from the cache of a million Bitcoin coins “mined” in 2009 by Nakamoto. At the current price, these currencies are supposed to be worth about $ 50 billion.
Proof of ownership of these bitcoin units is something that only the real Nakamoto can do and that is the main part in revealing his true identity. Wright claimed to have them, but never sold them or relocated them. His defense team claimed he would prove ownership of them after the trial and then transfer them to “use for charity”.
Wright claimed the partnership was unofficial and did not include a creation of Bitcoin, which he says he developed on his own, and only later received help from Kleiman and others.
For years, Wright’s claims have been rejected by the Bitcoin community, and the results of the trial are unlikely to change the minds of many community members here or there.
Wright announced his claim publicly for the first time in 2016 in a planned media campaign. He met with pioneers of Bitcoin, was interviewed in several media outlets, published a blog full of his writings on cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. Within a few days, most of the currency’s supporters had analyzed his claims in depth and rejected them, and he withdrew. Later, he renewed his claim.
Wright, who works as chief scientific officer at the British financial technology company nChain, said he plans to continue to be involved in cryptocurrencies and digital money. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m here for the long term.”