Judge Cancels 500,000 Bitcoin Fine As Wright Strives To Prove He is Satoshi Nakamoto

Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin, must have breathed a sigh of relief when United States District Judge, Bruce Reinhart, ruled against an existing sanction which demanded that Wright pay 50% of an alleged 1.1 million Bitcoins to the heirs of the now-deceased Dave Kleinman.

 He Said He Said

Kleinman’s lawyers claim that he was in fact the co-creator of Bitcoin with the Satoshi Nakamoto moniker being the name of his and Wrights partnership:

“… admissions with regard to who owned the intellectual property created by Satoshi Nakamoto and the story of Satoshi Nakamoto are relevant to the case because it is plaintiffs’ theory that Satoshi Nakamoto is the name of a partnership between Craig Wright and Dave Kleiman”

With Wright claiming ownership of the Bitcoin creation code Kleinman’s estate sees this evidence enough to pursue what is owed to the late Kleinman for the work he did in creating the code base alongside Wright.

They have submitted documentation allegedly proving not only his work on the project but also promises made by Wright to ensure the Kleinman estate receives what was due to him.

 Why The Bail Out?

While the ruling by Judge Reinhart cancels the demand for Wright to pay more than 500,000 BTC to the Kleinman estate it must not be seen as a victory for Wright. He may have won a battle, but the war is far from over.

The Judge supported his ruling by stating that the previous sanction had not taken key items into account when deciding the amount to be paid by Wright. He claims it fails to consider the volume of Bitcoin mined and currently owned by Wright, especially in light of the fact that Wright maintains that due to a misplaced security key he is unable to access the early Bitcoins that were mined.

This means that there is a Bitcoin wallet which contains an unprovable number of Bitcoins which could or could not be the original wallet created by Satoshi Nakamoto. There is too little factual data in this to rule on the matter.

Instead Judge Reinhart demanded that Wright cover the estates full legal fees up to this point which amounts to $658,000. With a caveat that the Bitcoin share agreement is still an ongoing point of contention.

 The Mystery Courier Arrives!

The reason for leaving the share agreement open ended was the ongoing assertion by Wright that a “bonded courier” would deliver the final code sequence needed to unlock the Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin wallet and finally prove he is the popular cryptocurrency’s creator.

January 14th saw his attorneys file a notice of compliance in this regard:

“Dr Wright notifies the Court that a third party has provided the necessary information and key slice to unlock the encrypted file, and Dr Wright has produced a list of his bitcoin holdings, as ordered by the Magistrate Judge”

However, with a proven history of obfuscation through falsifying both documents and statements this new information has not appeased his Wrights critics nor the Kleinman estate legal team.

The estates lawyers have asked the court for 90 days to depose Wright and other parties involved in bringing this new information to light, stating publicly:

“[Wright] has engaged, and appears to be continuing to engage in, conduct that has made it difficult to obtain discovery related to these core claims. To be more direct, Craig [Wright] has forged documents, submitted false declarations and perjured himself in open court – all in an effort to prevent the truth from being revealed.”

It will be of great interest to the world of cryptocurrency to see what the investigation can bring to light about Wright and his claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto over the next few months.