The court case between Australian Craig Wright and the estate of his late friend David Kleiman over the legal rights to tens of billions of dollars of Bitcoin minted by Satoshi Nakamoto could end in a mistrial if juries remain stagnant.
Wright claims that he used the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto when he invented Bitcoin. The case that is being deliberated began in 2018 when he was sued by the estate of his partner Kleiman claiming that they were both partners who had invented and mined Bitcoin together.
Around 5PM UTC on November 2, the jury was at a standstill, after issuing the following statement:
“Unfortunately we cannot reach a conclusion and we cannot all agree on a verdict on any of the questions.”
As of 10 p.m. UTC, the jury was still in neutral and is scheduled to return tomorrow, according to the judicial reporter Carolina Bolada by Law360.
Judge Beth Bloom issued an order from Allen instructing the jury to continue deliberating until a verdict was reached.. She said: “I suggest that you now carefully reexamine and reconsider all the evidence in light of the court’s instructions on the law.”
Nevertheless, If the jury is still unable to reach a verdict, the judge could declare the trial null and void.
The stakes are high in the case. Both parties maintain that Wright is Satoshi, however they disagree on the ownership of 1.1 million Bitcoin (BTC) mined at the time. As of today, those 1.1 million BTC are worth $ 62,568,836,000.
In the tribunals, David Kleiman’s brother Ira argued on behalf of the estate that Wright broke a verbal agreement with David to mine Bitcoin and develop their technology together.
Wright claims that no such association existed and that, at best, Kleiman corrected the Bitcoin white paper, as he was not a developer and could not have debugged the Bitcoin code.
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