The Australian bloke who claims – without providing any evidence – that he is the mastermind behind Bitcoin has been accused of swindling more than $6.4 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.
Craig Wright, who said back in 2016 that he helped create Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, allegedly used phoney contracts and signatures to pilfer coins from the estate of his colleague Dave Kleiman, who died in 2013. These allegations are made in a lawsuit lodged by Kleiman’s brother.
“Craig forged a series of contracts that purported to transfer Dave’s assets to Craig and/or companies controlled by him,’‘ lawyers for Kleiman’s family said in the complaint, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “Craig backdated these contracts and forged Dave’s signature on them.”
Wright is one of a number of people and organisations who claim to have been part of creating Bitcoin. After he took credit for the creation of the cryptocurrency in a 2016 blog post, a number of researchers, enthusiasts and journalists expressed skepticism about his claims. They cited his apparent lack of technical expertise among a number of other factors.
Following that backlash, Wright announced he wouldn’t be providing any more evidence, and he hasn’t piped up about it since. Here’s what he wrote on his (now defunct) blog at the time:
I believed that I could do this. I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot. When the rumours began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this. I know that this weakness will cause great damage to those that have supported me, and particularly to Jon Matonis and Gavin Andresen. I can only hope that their honour and credibility is not irreparably tainted by my actions. They were not deceived, but I know that the world will never believe that now. I can only say I’m sorry. And goodbye.
That, my friends, is a stock standard INTERNET MELTDOWN post. Textbook.
In the lawsuit, Kleiman’s brother cites emails between himself and Wright in which the computer scientist says that he is holding roughly 300,000 of Kleiman’s bitcoins. At today’s exchange rate, that is over $4 billion AUD.
The lawsuit also says that Kleiman and Wright worked together on the creation of Bitcoin in addition to mining it – which, if you listen to the community, is a highly contentious claim. Let’s see how this goes.
