Will The Real Satoshi Nakamoto Please Stand Up?

Highlights

• A civil trial will decide who holds the rights to Nakamoto’s which holds some 1.1 million BTC, which is equal to around US$69 billion
• The trial involves Ira Kleiman versus Craig Wright, the latter of which has claimed to be the Bitcoin’s creator since 2016
• The plaintiffs will provide evidence until November 10, at which point, there’s a four-day break taken for Veteran’s Day

A civil trial has begun this week in Miami, Fl, to determine whether Australian computer scientist, Dr. Craig Wright, is in fact, the creator of the world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, known by the pseudonym, “Satoshi Nakamoto”.

The case will decide who holds the rights to Nakamoto’s BTC wallet, which holds some 1.1 million BTC, which is equal to around US$69 billion.

Will The Real Satoshi Nakamoto Stand Up?

Perhaps more valuable, though, is the bragging rights to the largest digital currency in the world, which has very much changed the world since its 2009 inception.

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Who Is Involved in The Trial?

The trial involves Ira Kleiman versus Craig Wright, who claimed to be Bitcoin’s creator since 2016. Kleiman, however, claims it was his late brother, David, who cocreated Bitcoin along with Wright..

Wright has previously been at the centre of many other trials claiming to be the founder of Bitcoin. In fact, many of the trials over the past four years, have been within the Florida court system.

From the many appearances in court with the full legal team in toe, one could assume that Wright must be fairly wealthy. And that assumption may be valid. In fact, there have been claims that Wright is already a billionaire, although this hasn’t been substantiated.

Ira Kleiman, in the other hand, is not a billionaire. He is, according to his most recent deposition, a self-employed affiliate marketer. Yet, Kleiman has pursued Wright through the tangled web of IP (intellectual property) litigation since 2018.

The History of Wright’s Claims

It was 2016, when Dr. Wright first attempted to prove his claim that he was the author of Bitcoin’s whitepaper. He first tried to do this by posting what he claimed was a digital signature that the real Satoshi Nakamoto could have only done.

However, this attempt was later slammed by sceptics who found that the signature had been copied from 2009-era bitcoin transaction.

If the crypto space wasn’t sceptical before, they had good reason to be sceptical now. Indeed, many dubbed Wright’s claim as a ‘scam’ and a ‘fraud’.

Following the embarrassing setback, Wright continued to prove his identity by claiming to have access to the ninth block of Bitcoin ever to be created.

Skeptics argue, though, that the real Nakamoto would have keys to all the original blocks used to create the original Bitcoin blockchain.

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The Trial

The trial is currently at the end of Day Two, where both sides have made opening statements and now the trial is in the evidentiary phase, with the plaintiff, Ira Kleiman’s lawyers going first, in what is the longest portion of the trial. During this period, the jury will need to be educated on cryptocurrency.

The plaintiffs will provide evidence until November 10, at which point, there’s a four-day break taken for Veteran’s Day.

Following that, the defence (Wright’s lawyers) will present their evidence.

Today, British-Greek tech author and BTC advocate, Andreas Antonopoulos continued to explain the basics of the blockchain technology to the jury, who know nothing about the subject.

However, the defense cross examination lawyer, Andres Rivero, questioned Antonopoulos’ expertise in blockchain technology by getting him to admit that he’d never actually mined Bitcoin.

After this, an email was read, which was penned by Wright to Patrick Paige, a former colleague of David Kleiman, which described how Wright and Dave Kleiman had a Company where they ‘secretly’ mined Bitcoin.

Paige then took the stand, where he was asked questions pertaining to what exactly constitutes a business partnership.

Finally, the plaintiff asked questions to former lead developer at Bitcoin Core, Gavin Andresen about an email exchange between him, Dr. Wright and a few other people.

What was interesting about the questioning of both Andresen and Paige was that both seemed to believe that the “Satoshi” pseudonym was a representation of three people.

Current Outlook

It’s too early to call this a trial. There’s still a mountain of evidence to unpack. However, the revelation of Antonopoulos’ lack of expertise was a win for Wright’s lawyers as it undermined the credibility of Ira Kleiman’s claims.

In an interesting footnote, Kleiman himself was notably absent from Day Two of the trial, which raised more than a few eyebrows.