Bloomberg: Craig Wright Does Not Have Access to Bitcoin Fortune
Craig Wright said that he cannot comply with a court order to provide a list of all his early bitcoin (BTC) addresses, Bloomberg reported on June 28
The Australian computer scientist and self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto said that he may not be able to access the coins at all.
As previously reported, the United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida issued an order on May 3 requiring Wright to produce a list of his public bitcoin addresses. Wright, however, failed to disclose his bitcoin holdings per court order.
The order was part of an ongoing case against Wright that was filed by the estate of David Kleiman. Kleiman was a cyber-security expert, whom many believe to have been one of the first developers behind bitcoin and blockchain technology.
Kleiman’s estate brought the case to court in February 2018, claiming that Wright stole hundreds of thousands of BTC worth over $5 billion after Kleiman’s death, claiming that Wright “forged a series of contracts that purported to transfer Dave’s assets to Craig and/or companies controlled by him. Craig backdated these contracts and forged Dave’s signature on them.”
Wright claims that he gave a key piece of information regarding the funds and wallets to Kleiman before his death, making it difficult to find the digital wallets or the funds they purportedly hold.
Wright maintains that he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin, going so far as to file U.S. copyright registrations for the bitcoin white paper.
Wright stated that he decided to stop working on bitcoin in 2010, adding that “I brought in Dave because he was a friend and he knew who I was and he was a forensic expert and I wanted to wipe everything I had to do with bitcoin from the public record.”