Bloke who claimed he invented Bitcoin must hand over $5bn of e-dosh in court case. He can't. He's waiting for a time traveler to arrive The man who claims to have invented Bitcoin has been ordered by a Florida court to hand over half of his stash of the cyber-money, worth an estimated $5bn, to the estate of his dead business partner. There’s only one problem: Craig Wright claims that he isn’t able to do so because he doesn’t have access to it. Instead, he told …
Setting: a classroom in the future
Lecturer: and while the purpose of bitcoin was never entirely certain - it was supposedly a currency but was predominantly used by fraudsters to steal money from others - it did provide the basis for the proof of uncertainty, showing that what was previously unprovable could be proved simply by adding bitcoin. This was then the precursor to the infinite improbability drive and interplanetary travel...
While this is completely made up (I know...surprise), I'll not sure it is any less believable than reality...
"it was supposedly a currency but was predominantly used by fraudsters to steal money from others"
This does actually raise a valid and pertinent point. Does anyone actually *use* Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency), or is it just miners sitting on their stash waiting interminably for the "strike price" to reach the magic number and extortionists trying out new ways to stay hidden?
Well, there are BTC ATMs in many countries, You can buy stuff with BTC. And New Zealand, though not yet a nuclear hegemon, will allow salaries to be paid BTC. So I guess you could say BTC is usable.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/new-zealand-legalizes-cryptocurrency-salaries-including-bitcoin-2019-8-1028442320
There's enough places that do take bitcoin (eg) that one can cash out small amounts without much trouble.
Fortunately for me, as buying a single bitcoin when they were only worth double figures has provided for almost ten years of computer upgrades for me. Each time I'm left with a fraction of a bitcoin, worth a couple of quid, but in a year or two that's back up to a few hundred quid which equates to a new graphics card or motherboard etc.
Dunno about that. Pal at the office has been spending BTC for the last few years refurbishing his house.
He has all new sparkly kitchen/lounge appliances and other furniture he has bought from high street stores.
You exchange them for vouchers, granted he went into Argos with about £5k worth of vouchers.
You can spend them all you want, you have to look.
"Dear Sir, SEEKING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. Please permit me to make your acquaintance in so informal a manner. This is necessitated by my urgent need to reach a dependable and trust wordy foreign partner. This request may seem strange and unsolicited but I will crave your indulgence and pray that you view it seriously. My name is. CRAIG WRIGHT ..."
And the courier (being a reputable company) provided a receipt presumably? And since it still has the said package in storage, the sender could simply ask for it to be delivered early - or the courier could be compelled to hand it over by a court order?
No, didn't think so.
Reading the judgement, it seems the burden of proof is upon Wright now, to some extent. His repeated and serious dishonesty has led to the court rightly making presumptive findings against him. If he further refuses to provide meaningful and proper compliance to court orders, then he's at some risk of jail time for contempt.
Ultimately, the court is likely to order that Wright owes half of the 1,200,111 Btc which were transferred in his supposed "dog ate my homework" trust (p21 judgement) to Kleiman's estate. Then it becomes a simple(r) matter of enforcement.
"What proof do they have he did not cash it in in 2013 or 2014 at, say, $150 per bitcoin ?"
That could make things even worse for him. He is supposed to have in his possession assets worth* several billion, but half of it is owned by the estate of a now deceased person. If it turns out he flogged it all for a fraction of the price at some point, said estate still owns a few billion of assets, but now those assets have been stolen. It would change him from someone being an arse about handing over goods to the person who owns them, to someone who has stolen a pile of goods and now has no possibility of repaying the value stolen. If I steal your Ferrari and the court demands I give it back, I can't just claim I sold it for scrap and offer you a couple of hundred quid.
* For certain definitions of the word at least.
The way a blockchain works is that it's a ledger of every single transaction. So it's a matter of public record that most of the bitcoins that were first mined have never been transferred.
They are assumed to have been mined by Satoshi Nakamoto, who ever that person (or persons) is/are.
Tracking is great. The other day I loaded ul the tracking website to see that second they were at my door. The knock was at the moment I stood up to go ooen ot for them.
Years ago I have missed a courier "9am to 9pm" delivery slot because I had to drip off a letter in person at 9, and got home at 9:05 (I live close to the post office) because they turned up exactly at 9am. So I'm very thankful for the new tracking and estimation services.
Not that any of us believed his claims in the first place; not least as a result of his continuing failure to present the promised digital proof.
It is, however, usually difficult to prove a negative. But this, I would argue, nails it:
"But an expert took a look at the email and concluded from the email’s digital signature that it has been sent in early 2014."
Whatever other criticisms you may aim at Bitcoin, its real author clearly and fully understood the issues around immutablity and the digital proof of data integrity. No one with that level of comprehension could possibly have imagined that they'd get away with forging an email in 2014, which relied on a timestamped digital signature.
Ergo, this charlatan can not be that still anonymous author.
If he has to hand half of his partners bitcoins over at $5bn value but can't due to keys - what's stopping him using any of his own known keys to get at the other $5bn. Somehow don't believe he actually has $10bn and is a bit of a Walter Mitty
Failing any bitcoins - just seize his other assets.
I'm not entirely sure (and as this is all probably bollocks anyway it doesn't matter), but Wright claims that they split the keys to the wallet into multiple parts, so that it would require multiple people all agreeing to decrypt the wallet. He claims to have seven keys, and that he would need at least eight to unlock the money (how handy eh?). He says that his dead partner had the rest, and that a key (or several?) will be delivered to him by a courier in Jan 2020, giving him enough keys to do the decryption.
Or maybe, just maybe, he's talking out of his arse.
Wright claims that they split the keys to the wallet into multiple parts, so that it would require multiple people all agreeing to decrypt the wallet. He claims to have seven keys, and that he would need at least eight to unlock the money (how handy eh?). He says that his dead partner had the rest, and that a key (or several?) will be delivered to him by a courier in Jan 2020
There's a movie in that - something fantasy along the lines of Krull without the love interest, so maybe not a good one.
Its possible that Craig Wright is actually a time traveler. I suggest that maybe BTc itself is actually a plot to delay the Singularity in order to make money from ransomware, because of course as soon as the former occurs all the locked files will mysteriously unlock themselves and thus unmask the "fake" ransomware that actually just deletes or overwrites the files with gibberish.
This will also result in an instant 50% attack on BTc causing everyone's assets to become worthless, and render Brexit a historical footnote along with 8 track tape and the Morris worm as it turns out that the correct agreement was encoded in the original, with the decryption key hidden in the blockchain.
Incidentally the above is either not true or true simultaneously, until the wavefunction collapses.
:-)
Indeed, we are. I have in my possession a time machine that will seemingly instantly transfer me 8 hours into the future. I keep it in my bedroom. You can experience some interesting effects if you share the time machine with someone of the opposite sex, or indeed the same sex, if you're into that. This requires a good deal of empirical study.
Not about the Satoshi part, that's obviously rubbish. But I do believe that he and his partner shared keys and planned giving them to each other in the event of one or the other's death. I believe he was telling this story long before the court case even happened. It could be that the courier is tied to his partner's estate and legally binding but you'd think there'd be some documentation to back it up.
Either way, it's a great story to follow.
Even if they lock him up, how many people could he buy off with $5Bn!!! You could hire a pretty big army with that and an island to retire too as well.
I think in SWAT the villan only offered a paltry $100 Meeelion or some other loose change.
To be safe, better inject a slow release poison into him now and drop him in supermax until he hands over the dosh!
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