Blockchain and Cryptocurrency: People, Culture and Tech
Wright is being sued by Ira Kleiman, the adopted brother of Wright’s late partner, Dave Kleiman, for half of a 1.1 million bitcoin fortune. Those bitcoins are thought to have been mined by Satoshi Nakamoto at the beginning of the first blockchain.
In an unreleased transcript obtained by Modern Consensus of the lawsuit seeking half of the $10 billion in bitcoins the real Nakamoto mined at the beginning of the bitcoin project—which Craig Wright has said he possesses—lawyers for an unnamed third-party pleaded with the judge not to release his or her name to the public for fear of extortion or murder.
The vast majority of the cryptocurrency community thinks Craig Wright is lying when he claims to have invented Bitcoin. This includes luminaries like Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, Binance exchange CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, and many others who have reacted with rage to the Australian’s claims. That said, when people call Wright a liar, they generally refer to loads of proof without going into detail. So, we decided to dive into what proved to be a very deep pool.
“I give no weight to sworn statements of Dr. Wright that advance his interests but that have not been challenged by cross-examination and for which I cannot make a credibility determination. I have previously found that Dr. Wright gave perjured testimony in my presence,” Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart wrote in a scathing 14-page order.
