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The Courts Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Kleiman v. Wright: $65 Billion Bitcoin Case Has Started (yahoo.com) 77

Posted by BeauHD from the get-your-popcorn-ready dept.
UnknowingFool writes: The civil trial of Ira Kleiman vs. Craig Wright started on Monday in Miami. The estate of David Kleiman is suing Craig Wright, the self declared inventor of bitcoin, for 50% ownership of 1.1 million bitcoins. The estate claims Kleiman was in a partnership with Wright to mine the coins but after Kleiman died in April 2013, Wright denied any partnership. At over $60,000 each per bitcoin, this case is currently worth $65 billion.

Craig Wright has previously claimed he is the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, which has been met with skepticism based on his inability to show any proof. In this case, Wright has made numerous dubious claims. After the case was filed in 2018, Wright claimed he did not have the keys to the coins but that they would be arriving in January 2020 through a "bonded courier." After January 2020, Wright provided keys to the estate for verification which the estate claims the bitcoins were fake. Expressing skepticism that the courier even existed, the estate asked for more information about the courier. Wright then claimed the identity of the courier and all communications were protected under attorney-client privilege as the courier was an attorney.
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Kleiman v. Wright: $65 Billion Bitcoin Case Has Started More

Kleiman v. Wright: $65 Billion Bitcoin Case Has Started

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  • My attorney (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @06:28AM (#61953549)

    When he said he went to Brown I did not realize he meant UPS.

    • Craig Wright: The courier is my ass and it's delivering a load right into the courtroom.

  • if wright is not satoshi, how does the kleiman estate sue him for satoshi's 1.1m bitcoin??

    • if wright is not satoshi, how does the kleiman estate sue him for satoshi's 1.1m bitcoin??

      Wright maintains his claim; judge says "hand over 550,000 bitcoins OR $32.5 billion, your choice".

      The anal reaming that is about to take place here is gonna bring tears to the eyes of everyone watching it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        The anal reaming that is about to take place here is gonna bring tears to the eyes of everyone watching it.

        Tears of laughter, mostly.

        • Especially if I decided to transfer a few satoshis from that address to show that he's not Satoshi after all...

          Actually, maybe he deserves to be on the hook for $32.5 billion for making that ludicrous false claim, so I'll wait a bit longer.

      • Why would he give them the option of providing to him $32.5B in useless, icky, doomed, fiat currency?

        • It can't be both useless and also worth $32B. I can think of at least 7 uses for that much money.

      • Especially when the recipients of all that bitcoin get a really big fucking bill from the IRS.\

        You couldn't settle this mess privately, so now it's settled publicly, and that means government gets a peek at it all.

    • Re:sorry what? (Score:4, Informative)

      by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @06:42AM (#61953579)
      Wright _claims_ publicly to be Satoshi, so he can be sued. If he says _in court_ he is Satoshi, then this is fact as far as the court is concerned, and he may have to pay. If he says _in court_ that he is just a stupid little liar trying to make himself look important, then the other side would have to prove it, and that would be difficult.

      • If he says _in court_ he is Satoshi, then this is fact as far as the court is concerned, and he may have to pay. If he says _in court_ that he is just a stupid little liar trying to make himself look important, then the other side would have to prove it, and that would be difficult.

        But isn't this a lose-lose situation for Wright? If he continues to claim he is Satoshi, he's on the hook for billions. If he backs down, he's a laughing stock.

        Unless, of course, I'm missing something.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • It's only perjury if he lies under oath. If he lies in press releases or on the Internet, it's no different than many other press releases, and the vast majority of shit posted to the Internet.

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

              • If he hasn't actually been placed under oath, then it's not perjury. It could be other crimes - false report, forgery, etc.

                Perjury is very specifically about testifying falsely in a legal proceeding - be it under oath in front of Congress, in a deposition, on a sworn statement / affidavit, on signed legal forms that declare that knowingly submitting false information would be penalized as perjury (tax forms, etc.), or on the witness stand in a trial.

                Perhaps some of the paperwork necessary to get to where t

              • Not exactly. The plaintiff indirectly claims Wright is Satoshi. A great defense would have been that Wright denies he is Satoshi and forcing the plaintiff to prove he is. The claim is this: David Kleiman was in a partnership with Wright in the early days of Bitcoin to mine coins around the same time Satoshi was mining his coins. Wright claims he is Satoshi who is known to own 1.1 million coins. Thus Kleiman helped Wright/Satoshi mine those coins.

                Wright in his defense could say that he mined other coins than

        • Kleiman has to prove to the court that the partnership existed and that the agreement between partners was that each would get 50%. Despite Wright having little credibility with the court, Kleiman still has to prove their part.

      • If he says _in court_ he is Satoshi, then this is fact as far as the court is concerned, and he may have to pay.

        Is there a contract somewhere that says "Satoshi" was partners with the dead guy and promised him half?

        • No the claim is Wright was in partnership with Kleiman to mine bitcoins. Wright claims he is Satoshi and Satoshi has 1.1 million bitcoins. Therefore the claim is Kleiman has at least partial ownership of 1.1 million bitcoins. Now Wright can claim other things like 1) there was no partnership or 2) the coins he mined with Kleiman were not the same ones as he owns as Satoshi. However the court first required basic information such as what coins Wright has in his possession. So far Wright has failed to provide

    • Re:sorry what? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @07:06AM (#61953637)
      Wright can just a sign a message for the judge with Satoshi's key. We know this is still possible, because 10BTC were moved from the Satoshi account just two years ago.

      • Do you have a link to the story?

        • What "story"? That the BTC was moved from the Satoshi wallet?

          https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Zocalo ( 252965 )
            According to the link, that's just a random dormant wallet from the era when Satoshi was still active. There are a LOT of these, tying up millions of BTC, most of which were probably people other than Satoshi playing around and the keys for which have long since been lost, although in that case someone appears to have gotten lucky and found an old drive or something. Wright would have to use a key, or demonstrate access to a wallet, that is undeniably linked to Satoshi to prove his claim. Unless that det

      • Does this "Satoshi account" have a single wallet address?

    • Re:sorry what? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @07:19AM (#61953653) Homepage Journal

      Because he claims to be.

      His end-game is that the court rules in his favor, and he can go around slightly twisting the facts and then claiming that he is Satoshi, and a court has confirmed his identity. (not strictly speaking true, but that's how conmen work - slightly twisting the truth of the court ACCEPTING his claim at face value into the court CONFIRMING his claim, and lay people wouldn't spot the difference)

    • The whole point is that Wright claims he is Satoshi. As a defense he could have said he is not Satoshi but that would also torpedo his other legal cases where he claimed he was.

  • Adopt German law (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @06:39AM (#61953573)
    German law: First thing the judge asks how much you are arguing about. So, $65 billion. Then the judge tells you what the fees for the court and the lawyers are. It's a percentage of the amount you argue about; at that amount probably 0.2% each (someone might know the exact amount). Then the judge will want to see that you are able to pay $130 million to the court. If not, you'll have to find that money.

    Next, if you did this and 6.5 million dollars instead of 65 billion, to the court you lost 99.99% of your case, so you pay 99.99% of the court fees and the lawyer cost.

    Somehow that stops these kind of idiotic demands happening in Germany.

    • So, what if somebody screws you over, and takes you for all you have got - how are you ever going to have the financial means to fight them in court?

      • Only rich people deserve justice in Germany.

        • No different than anywhere else, really... might be more explicit, but in all western nations you are entitled to exactly as much justice as you can afford.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        You can have legal insurance that will cover it.

        If you don't have that, there are various ways of legal support, especially for low-income people.

        I also think (but on this one I'm not sure) the court can simply waive the fees.

      • So, what if somebody screws you over, and takes you for all you have got - how are you ever going to have the financial means to fight them in court?

        Absolutely. The German justice system has never thought of that possibility. Not in 150 years.

        Of course not, you idiot. If someone takes you for all you've got, you go to a lawyer, and he will advice you and figure out a way to get your own back. If you make ridiculous claims for 65 billions, you're stuck.

      • Everyone I knows has legal insurance. It's usually bundled with something. Personally I have it with my bank fees, 1EUR a month goes to legal insurance to cover the legal costs of defending such a one sided court application. My best friend has it as a rider on his car insurance.

    • That's great for limiting the scenario of 2 ultra rich parties suing each other over nonsense.

      What happens when you're a young widow with a baby suing a megacorp because their product killed your husband?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        You're not suing for 65 billion.

        Also, most Germans have legal insurance that would cover such a case, if they look at the facts and conclude that you have a chance to win.

  • The summery says:
    " After January 2020, Wright provided keys to the estate for verification which the estate claims the bitcoins were fake."

    Fake bitcoins ? If there is something that can be easily checked for genuineness is Bitcoin.
    First you can point at a public address and show the bitcoins are there. No way to fake this.
    Then you can prove you own the key to that address if you are asked to send out a specific amount to a specific address.
    No one can fake this.
    How can they not be sure ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Seems likely to be either people in the court system not quite understanding the terminology, or the reporter getting things mixed up. I suspect the "keys" here are probably to unlock some form of offline crypto storage system (a cold wallet), which Kleiman's estate are claiming was fake - e.g. that any Bitcoins it purported to contain did not actually exist on the ledger, or the wallet was empty/"corrupted". Until they had the keys though, they had no way of knowing this.

      Not sure how feasible that mig

    • In ECDSA if you don't hash the plaintext yourself it's easy to substitute any fake key.

      See here [stackexchange.com].

      Now all you need is a judge who is also a cryptographer to get justice.

      • In ECDSA if you don't hash the plaintext yourself it's easy to substitute any fake key.

        That's true... but in any cryptosystem if you don't hash the plaintext yourself then you're not verifying that the message was correctly signed. The "plaintext" here could merely be a hash of the actual message, but if it's completely unknown then the signature is useless.

      • Or an expert witness or three that can testify to that fact, which is far more plausible.

    • First you can point at a public address and show the bitcoins are there. No way to fake this

      And if someone provides fictitious addresses? Would they not be fake?

      • You can check any address on the blockchain here:
        https://www.blockchain.com/exp... [blockchain.com]

        It will tell you if it's real or not, and the balance of BTC it holds, plus past transactions.. Then if you want to prove you own the private key to that address, ask your challenger to tell you to transfer a specific amount of BTC to another specific address, do that in front of him within the next 5 min, if you receive the amount, then you know the person has the private key. And you will see the transaction recorded on http [blockchain.com]

        • You do understand that in the context of the case, the plaintiff asked Wright (and was ordered by the court) to provide a list of all the Bitcoins he owned. After more than a year waiting for his "bonded courier" Wright provided the plaintiff with a list of Bitcoins that were not on the blockchain and do not exist. You do understand that is why the plaintiff called the Bitcoins "fake" right?

          • Yes, I understand. And that's why I'm wondering why they still argue about this, Bitcoin authenticity is rather black and white, there is no in-between. It's probably all fuzzy because of lawyers and big money involved.

            • You do understand that the trial started this week, and the court has not ruled, right? Either side can claim all sorts of things but must wait decision by the court even if the claim is an easily verifiable matter of fact. The court must hear both sides before rendering a decision. For example, if someone claims with DNA results to be a long lost child to claim an inheritance, the court does not automatically grant the claimant the inheritance once the announcement was made.

  • Privilege this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @08:12AM (#61953731) Journal

    Wright then claimed the identity of the courier and all communications were protected under attorney-client privilege as the courier was an attorney.

    Bzzzt! Try again. The attorney-client privilege is to protect the client, not the attorney. He can release all that if he wishes.

    • For that matter, the attorney's name would probably have to be not shieldable, to prove it is an attorney.

    • If this argument was valid, law school would be full of criminals and mobsters. Ok, well...now I'm not actually sure.

    • Wright is technically correct as Kleiman cannot question Wright's attorney without his or the courts' permission. Now Wright could waive privilege; however, I too am skeptical that this person existed.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by srg33 ( 1095679 )

        This is legally interesting, but . . .
        The identity of the courier is not protected under privilege even if he/she is an attorney.
        The courier is responsible for several links in the chain of custody and must be able to sign applicable affidavits.
        Even if this courier were Wright's attorney, he/she must attest to delivering something; he/she probably can claim that any discussion of the contents prior to delivery is protected/privileged.

        • The court may have said questioning the courier is moot if it agrees with the plaintiff that the addresses were bogus. Questioning the courier would only serve to undermine Wright's credibility for sanctions which the court has already acknowledged that Wright has very little with the court.
      • what possible reason could he have to NOT waive privilege. regardless the attorney's name is not considered privileged information. If the story is true then he has every reason to waive any privilege and absolutely none to keep it.

        • what possible reason could he have to NOT waive privilege. regardless the attorney's name is not considered privileged information. If the story is true then he has every reason to waive any privilege and absolutely none to keep it.

          Privilege is the default. The defendant does not have to list reasons why he will not waive privilege. Again I am skeptical that this courier even existed.

  • ...beyond the usual money laundering and pointless speculation on a commodity which isn't actually a commodity. Plenty of carbon emissions, though.

    It's high time that tech sites stopped being fooled into believing in a pyramid scheme just because it's a tech pyramid scheme. These things are as old as the hills. But at least when people were paying stupid prices for tulip bulbs there was the chance of growing a nice flower after you'd been left with a rapidly depreciating asset, rather than on a planet w

  • I'd settle for half a billion. I am not greedy

  • Missed the important part (Score:3)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @12:15PM (#61954349)

    FTA:

    According to Ira Kleiman, his late brother David – a fellow computer expert and longtime friend of Wright – was the co-creator of Bitcoin and is entitled to a share of a trove of bitcoin currently valued at $66 billion.

    [...]

    Furthermore, there are some in the crypto community who question whether the 1.1 million bitcoins at the heart of this case even exist. In a blog post from 2018, Tokyo-based software developer and self-proclaimed “Bitcoin archaeologist” Kim Nilsson traced wallet addresses supposedly held by Wright, tying many of them back to the 2014 Mt Gox hack.

    I'm curious to know what evidence Ira Kleiman has for his brother being a co-creator of Bitcoin, or if he's just playing off of Wright's claim (since if Wright claims to be Satoshi then Wright's partner is a co-creator).

    I'm also highly dubious that Wright has access to 1.1 million bitcoins.

    • or if he's just playing off of Wright's claim

      Fraudsters normally keep good company. Let them go to town. At least the lawyer (who are for a change the least evil people in this fight) can get rich.

  • Next thing you know he'll claim the Bitcoins are stored in a "trunk box" in a warehouse at JFK airport, but if you pay him $150 to obtain the customs declaration form, he'll share the Bitcoins inside with you.

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