On Monday, the civil trial of Ira Kleiman vs. Craig Wright started in Miami. There are two main questions here: who is Satoshi Nakamoto, the purported inventor of Bitcoin, and what happened to the estimated 1.1 million BTC he allegedly owned?
Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, claimed the identity of the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin almost six years ago. Plaintiff Ira Kleiman claims he didn’t act alone. According to him, his late brother David co-created the king of crypto and deserves a cut, currently amounting to $66 billion.
Kleiman believes his brother David single-handedly mined the ‘treasure trove’ of 1.1 million BTC. He accuses Wright of cheating his brother out of them. Wright, in turn, claims he always acted alone.
David Kleiman: Friend or business partner?
The panel of 10 jurors selected on Monday will hear the evidence and issue a verdict in three weeks. Kleiman’s attorney Kyle Rosche presented a timeline for the jury in an attempt to prove Wright is lying about his relationship with David Kleiman. Wright has said he was only a friend and never helped him.
However, a series of emails the court saw on Monday shows Wright repeatedly refers to David Kleiman as a “partner” until he died in 2013. After Kleiman’s death, Wright started distancing himself, claiming David had transferred his share to him.
In 2015, Ira Kleiman was informed by Australian tax authorities of a fraudulent claim from Wright that he had paid David around $40 million for materials belonging to W&K Info Defense Research, a company David and Wright shared. Ira filed a lawsuit against Wright in 2018. By that time, Wright was denying that David Kleiman had been a business partner.
Defense hinges on autism and no written agreement
Wright’s defense is based on the lack of a written agreement between him and David Kleiman and his diagnosis with Autism Spectrum Disorder. According to Wright’s counsel, his autism makes him hard to communicate with.
They attempted to convince the jury that Wright and Ira Kleiman see the concept of partnership in different ways. Wright, a social recluse, found solace in math and cryptography. However, Rosche claims Wright was diagnosed with autism after 2018.
Does Satoshi Nakamoto exist?
Wright has not been able to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2016, he announced he would move Satoshi’s bitcoin, but didn’t, writing that he didn’t “have the courage” to do it. While he provided cryptographic evidence of ownership of the code, a number of esteemed cryptography experts have found it to be fraudulent.
How to retrieve the money
Even if the jury issues a verdict in favor of Ira Kleiman, can the court retrieve Satoshi’s bitcoins? The Kleimans might not get their hands on the 66 billion if it emerges Wright is not Satoshi after all or he is, but has lost access to the wallet. Moreover, some crypto community members claim the 1.1 million bitcoins don’t even exist.
