Blockchain and Cryptocurrency: People, Culture and Tech
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.
Eleven cryptocurrency issuers and exchanges including Tron, Block.one, and Binance were hit with class action lawsuits last week for holding or supporting initial coin offerings. Ominously, they were filed by a group of lawyers led by Philippe Selendy, who the Financial Times called “The man who took on Wall Street” after he forced 16 major banks including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase to pay $25 billion for their part in the subprime mortgage crisis that sparked the Great Recession of 2007.
“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.
Just a week ago Judge Beth Bloom gave Wright until Valentine’s Day to redact and hand over anything privileged in the “Tulip Trust III” document, which may contain the keys to unlocking Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.1 million bitcoins.
