Self-proclaimed Bitcoin ‘inventor’, Craig Wright, was giving a testimony yesterday to explain why he can’t produce the public addresses of the bitcoin he has mined. Fortunately, law reporter, Carolina Bolado, was there to tweet progress as it happened.
The Wright Side Of The Story
Wright was in court as defendant in the case brought by the estate of Dave Kleiman, over the alleged theft of 1 million bitcoin. The bitcoin in question was supposedly mined by Kleiman and Wright in the early years after Kleiman purportedly helped Wright to develop Bitcoin.
He had previously been ordered by the court to give a list of his owned bitcoin addresses.
When questioned by his own law team, Wright repeated his claim, that he “just can’t get this information,” and that it wouldn’t provide the plaintiff with anything relevant anyway.
Through tears, he said that he was ashamed of his ‘invention’, and bemoaned the fact that people had used it for criminal activity. Supposedly, he created the ‘anonymous’ digital currency, intending it to be the only crime-free money.
The Cross-Examination
During cross-examination, Wright was presented with a printout of a pdf of an email, which the prosecution claim was forged. Although the email is dated December 2012, and purports to be from Kleiman, the PGP signature was generated in March 2014. Kleiman had been dead for a year at this point.
Wright showed his disdain for the document by screwing it up and tossing it aside, much to the chagrin of the judge. He reprimanded Wright, saying, “You throw another document in my courtroom you will be in handcuffs so fast your head will spin.”
"You throw another document in my courtroom you will be in handcuffs so fast your head will spin" — Judge Reinhart
— Carolina Bolado (@CarolinaBolado) June 28, 2019
While Wright claimed that Kleiman’s counsel was trying to mislead the court, the email in question had been provided by his own legal team.
Craig Can Be ‘Wright’ Forgetful At Times
The topic of questioning then turned to the blind-trust in which Wright claims to have put his bitcoin.
Kleiman’s counsel put it to Wright that the beneficiary of a trust he supposedly created in 2012, was a company he didn’t buy until 2014. Wright responded that he didn’t recognise the documents, although the counsel claimed they were ‘produced by [Wright] in discovery’.
When asked who holds the 15 key slices, 8 of which are needed to access the bitcoin supposedly in trust, Wright replied that he ‘didn’t know off the top of his head’. Apparently, nobody asked him to check the file. Although he clearly knew that he had been requested to provide the public keys in court.
The judge took over questioning, and Wright claimed that he gave some keys to Kleiman. These were to be given to bonded couriers, and Wright said that some won’t be available until 2020.
The judge was again, less than impressed with only finding this out at this juncture:
So since 2016 you have known that you didn’t have access to these files and wouldn’t have access until 2020? And you knew this in February 2019, and March 2019?
There was no time to complete the proceedings, so parties will have to reconvene at a future date to hear testimonies from expert witnesses.
Do you make of the latest court proceedings against Craig Wright? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
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