TL;DR Breakdown
- Australian computer scientist Dr. Craig Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
- Wright wins a court case that gives him a legal claim to the mantle of Satoshi Nakamoto.
On December 7, 2021, a significant case involving the mystery behind the creation of BTC may have unmasked Satoshi Nakamoto. Dr Craig Wright, an Australian Computer Scientist, was facing charges from the family of a former friend who claimed that their deceased member co-created BTC with him. However, after further investigations, a US federal court cleared six of the seven charges that Craig was facing.
The family of one David Kleiman, a computer forensics expert, and a friend of Craig Wright sued Wright for holding half of the 1.1 million pre-mined BTC. This family sought to repossess half the amount of initially mined BTC through court procedure following a claim that Satoshi Nakamoto was a two-person pseudonym. However, the court ruling did not favour them.
Australian computer scientist wins a controversial BTC ownership case
Wright largely succeeded in Florida after a case against him regarding the estate of a former friend was ruled in his favour. The scientist faced seven charge counts tied to BTC worth $54 billion. However, Craig will have to part ways with the $100 million that the court awarded to an early venture (W&K) between Craig and David.
According to the documents from the court, the pre-mined 1.1 million BTC belongs to Satoshi Nakamoto, who published a whitepaper on BTC in 2008; therefore, only Craig had a claim to it.
According to a video from Craig, he was satisfied with the court’s ruling but said that the fight for BTC is far from over. He said that his ambitions would continue pushing him to help BTC achieve its potential of developing a digital monetary system.
The lawsuit against Wright was first filed in the Florida court by Kleiman’s brother, who claimed that Wright had forged documents for the full ownership of BTC. The brother gave evidence in several documents that he thought had fake authorizations to hand Kleiman’s shares to Craig. However, his evidence did not stand in court after the long brawl that started on November 2, 2021, ended with Wright’s victory in December.
Did the court unmask Satoshi Nakamoto?
Since publishing the first paper about BTC in 2008, its creator has been a mystery under Satoshi Nakamoto. However, a significant development happened in 2016, when Craig Wright said he was ready to claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Wright said through a BBC interview that he has the evidence to back up his claims. However, he took back his statement saying he would not publish that evidence in the form of the early BTC access keys. He claimed to ‘lack the courage’ to unmask that identity.
However, the past month’s events could have finally unlocked the critical mystery as Craig had to have proof of being Satoshi Nakamoto to keep the BTC holdings. However, the repercussions of this big reveal are yet to be seen.
