The man who claims to have written the Bitcoin (BTC) whitepaper may not have written his own law degree dissertation. That’s the picture painted by “PaintedFrog,” the pseudonymous writer of a Medium post on April 9. This post demonstrates large-scale similarities between Wright’s dissertation and several other publicly available sources. Wright’s dissertation for his LLM in International Commercial Law for Northumbria University was written in 2008, titled The Impact of Internet Intermediary Liability. Yet the following screenshot suggests much of Wright’s paper was lifted wholesale from Hillary E. Pearson’s 1996 paper, Liability of Internet Service Providers. Left: Wright’s 2008 dissertation; …

Lawyers for Satoshi claimant Craig Wright have strongly criticised a magistrate's order as wrong in law and “based in significant part on personal attacks” against Wright and his Kenyan attorney. Wright‘s team was objecting to the Order on Discovery filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, that required him to produce a cache of 11,000 documents in a multi-billion lawsuit issued by the estate of his late business partner Dave Kleiman. They said the "order is clearly erroneous and contrary to law. It should be reversed and vacated”. Earlier in the case, Magistrate Judge Bruce …

In his latest blog post, Craig Wright claimed that he (as Satoshi Nakamoto) never wanted WikiLeaks to use Bitcoin. On March 31st he wrote: “I’m not the anarchist they want, nor have I ever been anything like one. You see, I didn’t want WikiLeaks to use Bitcoin because I didn’t like what they stood for.” However, publicly available web links from July 2011 suggest this was not the case. In the wake of PayPal’s decision to freeze the accounts of the non-profit WikiLeaks in 2010, Wright told commenters on his article in The Conversation that it was the foundation’s own …

After a court slammed Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving perjured testimony in the ongoing legal circus between Wright and Ira Kleiman’s estate concerning the Tulip Trust, Kleiman’s legal team is hard at work finding a key witness. Kleiman’s legal team are trying to subpoena former nChain CEO Jimmy Nguyen to provide a deposition. However, it seems like they are having a difficult time tracking him down. Kleiman’s legal team left a comment on Jimmy’s latest Twitter post on March 29, saying: “Jimmy — we've been trying to serve you with a subpoena in Kleiman v. Wright. We …

The man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto says 2020 is the year the law comes for Bitcoin. Writing on his personal blog, Craig Wright offered a view of Bitcoin’s future which doesn’t bode well for operators of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, or the coin’s miners. One of Bitcoin’s biggest attractions is its supposedly permissionless, authority-resistant nature. But according to Wright, these are illusions. Wright claims that any amount of Bitcoin purchased without meeting legally recognized CDD (customer due diligence) and KYC (know your customer) requirements is, in effect, stolen Bitcoin. According to Wright, that spells trouble for Lightning Network operators …

In the latest disruption to the case between the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright, and the estate of the late Dave Kleiman, the plaintiffs are seeking a two-week extension to discovery amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a motion filed on March 24, Dave Kleiman’s estate asserts that the COVID-19 lockdown has presented “numerous complications associated with meeting deadlines set prior to the onset of the global pandemic.” The COVID-19 pandemic makes depositions improbable With the plaintiffs’ representation currently working from home due to the law firms temporarily closing their offices, the Kleiman estate is requesting a two-week extension to complete …

United States Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart has ruled that the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright, must pay only 20% of the legal fees requested by the estate of the late-Dave Kleiman. According to March 16 court documents, the attorneys representing Dave’s brother Ira requested a total of $592,558 for legal fees for hourly rates of between $610 and $1,050, and roughly $66,000 in other expenses. Kleiman estate requested nearly $660,000 in fees and expenses Court documents show that Judge Reinhart found the quoted rates to be excessive, stating, “I am personally familiar with the hourly rates charged by the top …

Update March 11: Craig Wright now has until March 12 to produce sufficient documentation detailing the quantity of Bitcoins held by the ‘Tulip Trusts’ and their corresponding Bitcoin addresses. Judge Bruce Reinhart has slammed Craig Wright for producing forged documents and giving perjured testimony during the ongoing litigations between Wright and Ira Kleiman during a hearing concerning the Tulip Trust. Reinhart questioned Wright’s credibility, noting that — in the past — the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto had openly lied to the court: “Particularly given my prior finding that Dr. Wright has produced forged documents in this litigation, I decline to rely …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week A bruising week for cryptocurrencies, stock markets and even gold This week, it seemed like nowhere was safe from panic over the coronavirus. Almost $3.2 trillion in U.S. stocks has been wiped out U.S. since Monday — and over the past seven days, Bitcoin has tumbled by more than 13%. Even gold, traditionally regarded as …

As Cointelegraph reported yesterday, self-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) creator Craig Wright claims that Bitcoin can and will be seized to accommodate court orders. What follows is an analysis of whether what he says is possible and plausible. Screenshots resurfaced on Feb. 26, show that Wright claims Bitcoin will be seized without using the owner’s private keys. Instead, it will be moved through miners and nodes coordinating to comply with a court order. He said that code is law but “courts can mandate patching code.” Cryptocurrency security consultant Sergio Demian Lerner told Cointelegraph that Wright’s proposition “is morally and legally ridiculous” given …

Self-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) creator Craig Wright claims that Bitcoin can and will be seized to accommodate court orders. On Feb. 26, Bitcoin influencer Peter McCormack published screenshots showing Wright claiming that the first seizure of Bitcoin by courts will happen this year and won’t require private keys. Bitcoin seizure through miner coordination Instead, it will supposedly happen through miner and node coordinating to comply with a court order. He concluded: “Without keys, BTC will be confiscated. Code is law, and courts can mandate patching code. Bitcoin is not encrypted. It is economic.” In the second and last screenshot, Wright asks …

In a recent tweet, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has made it clear that he thinks Craig Wright, the Bitcoin SV (BSV) founder and self-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) creator, is a fraud. Indeed, Wright is a divisive figure in the industry, having involved himself in various legal battles and public spats as he attempts to convince the crypto world that he is the rightful inventor of the first cryptocurrency. To this end, Zhao told Cointelegraph that Wright is not only hurting his own reputation but is harming that of the cryptocurrency industry as a whole: “He claims to be the founder of …