Key facts:
Craig Wright claims to be the owner of the USD 3.5 billion in bitcoins deposited in one address.
A British judge dismissed the allegations and it is not known whether Wright will appeal the decision.
The lawsuit filed by Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, against several major Bitcoin (BTC) developers in the case of BTC stolen from the Mt. Gox exchange and deposited at an address allegedly assigned to him, was dismissed by a judge. of a UK High Court.
The judgment of judge Sarah Falk released this Friday, March 25, 2022, concludes that Wright, who has said that he is the “true” creator of Bitcoin, did not establish clear reasons for a formal trial to be held on the alleged theft of BTC. The decision names the company Tulip Trading Limited (TTL), which responds to Wright.
In theory, Wright had to prove to the court that the case he was presenting had all the requirements to be brought to trial, but the judge dismissed the arguments.
The judge’s decision has to do with the complaint made by the computer scientist a couple of years ago for the loss of several million dollars in bitcoins, which were deposited in a wallet that was later linked to the hack of the now defunct exchange Mt. Gox.
At that time, the self-proclaimed Satoshi claimed to be the owner of a couple of addresses, one of which was used to receive about 80,000 bitcoins that were stolen in 2011 from that exchange house.
According to Wright’s lawyers, hackers took the private keys of the wallet that contained that huge amount of money, through an alleged attack on his computer. The alarming thing is that they pointed to Bitcoin devs as responsiblebut the judge noted that there is no evidence that the developers had anything to do with either the Mt. Gox hack or the theft of Wright’s keys.
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Currently, that address continues to host the almost 80 thousand BTC. This is what the website shows mempool.spacewhich highlights that, at the close of this note, there is more than USD 3.5 billion in frozen bitcoin.
Wright argues that the developers – most notably Gregory Maxwell and Pieter Wuille – have “fiduciary duties” to him, so they must give him access to the bitcoins in question, which he claims were stolen from him. For the judge, the allegation is unfounded:
I don’t think bitcoin owners can realistically be described as entrusting their ownership to a fluctuating and unidentified body of software developers, at least not in the sense and to the extent that Tulip Trading Limited claims.
Judge Justice Falk.
Ironically, Wright obtained arguments that, for the judge, gave him advantages in several of the jurisdictional points. However, it was of no use. All the merits of the case fell short of what was necessary to warrant a trial.
In fact, the fake Satoshi argued that the court should take the case to trial because there were “important issues” to deal with. But for the judge it was not like that, because, although serious matters were reflected to be discussed, did not have the necessary relevance for a formal hearing.
Wright and the 80 thousand stolen bitcoins
The case of Wright and the extinct exchange Mt. Gox was reviewed by CriptoNoticias in 2020. In June of that year, the Australian sent – through his lawyers – a letter to members of “Bitcoin Core”, where he declared to be the owner of the aforementioned Bitcoin address.
Wright was quickly rebuked by Max Karpelès, former CEO of the inoperative exchange house. At that time he questioned whether that letter was an admission of theft.
“Craig Wright claims to have been in control of this address until recently, admitting liability for damages and interest?” Karpelès wrote on Twitter at the time.
In any case, the sentence released today is nothing more than another setback for the computer scientist, that for years already has the rejection of the bitcoiner community for their actions against major developers.
It is not clear if Wright will appeal the judge’s decision, but as can be seen, his lawyers do not have an easy task and it could take several months before trying to obtain a positive decision from the court. Justice is blind they say.