The Kleiman v Wright trial continued into day 4 of this landmark event in which a jury will decide the legal identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, author of the Bitcoin white paper and the legal owner of nearly $69 billion in Bitcoin. The twist on this case is that everyone agrees that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. But Craig is not alone as Satoshi according to the plaintiff, Ira Kleiman, who claims that his late brother and best friend to Craig were partners and Dave Kleiman should also be named Satoshi Nakamoto. Make sense? It will all come together like a fitted glove over the course of the next few weeks.
Today saw Ira on the stand all day facing a barrage of questions from defense attorney Andres Rivero as part of the cross-examination phase of Ira’s testimony. Several key points were made that poked a few holes in that testimony. There was a strong point of focus on the 2009 Thanksgiving dinner when Dave allegedly showed Ira the “original” bitcoin logo. Ira had described that logo however he described a logo that was not created until much later than Thanksgiving 2009. Andres asked Ira if he was aware the logo that Dave allegedly showed him was not created until a later date to which he replied he was not aware.
Rivero reviewed numerous email correspondence between Craig and Dave that confirmed the two men working on a white paper. The plaintiff would have everyone believe that the white paper mentioned in these emails was directly related to Bitcoin. In fact, there was no mention of Bitcoin or the Bitcoin white paper in any of the emails. The two were writing a white paper about hard drive wiping fallacies which coincidentally was published in September 2008. This evidence punched a big hole in the plaintiff’s case and removed any connection of the emails to the Bitcoin white paper.
Kurt Wuckert Jr., Chief Bitcoin Historian at CoinGeek, is covering the trial in Miami. During his daily livestream, he mentioned several oddities with regards to Ira and his use of some bizarre email addresses he created. Kurt also noted Ira still controls Dave’s email address and sends himself a happy birthday wish each year from that email. Not sure what to make of that.
While the day saw plenty of action from the defense, there was nothing from the plaintiff all day. The temperature of the courtroom was that the result of today’s proceedings was in favor of the defense team. The real excitement and much-anticipated testimony by Craig Wright may start sooner than later as the proceedings are moving well ahead of schedule.
