Craig Wright Snubbed by US Court, His Supporters by Crypto Twitter

For starters, Wright’s claim of being the man behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto was never taken seriously by the vast majority of the cryptocurrency community. And now he seems to be losing ground legally too. As Wright continues to suffer one setback after another on the legal front, the few supporters he currently has are also drawing flak from the cryptocurrency side of Twitter for defending the seemingly undefendable.

Florida Judge Snubs Craig Wright Over Unreliable Testimony

On Aug 15, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom quashed an appeal by Wright to dismiss a lawsuit filed against him because of his credibility and past testimony. Judge Bloom also called him out for giving varying statements about the ownership structure of W&K Info Defense Research LLC. “Faketoshi,” as some critics not-so-fondly call Wright, is on record saying that he owned 50% of the company before fully backtracking and saying that he didn’t know the owner of W&K. Somewhere in between, he also stated that W&K was wholly owned by his former business partner, the now-deceased David Kleiman. For those out of the loop, Wright and Kleiman are believed to have been associated with the creation of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. In 2011, the duo co-founded W&K to mine the world’s first decentralized digital asset. However, Ira Kleiman, brother of David Kleiman, alleges that Wright fraudulently took ownership of 1.1 million Bitcoin (~$11B at press time) following David’s death in 2013. Wright appealed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to dismiss Ira Kleinman’s $10.2B lawsuit (case no. 9:18-cv-80176) claiming that the court had no subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. Judge Bloom, however, turned down the appeal calling his argument for dismissal “novel.”

Bitmessage Developer’s Testimony Stirs More Trouble for Wright

Wright is also accused of faking contracts, email correspondences, and Bitmessages with the intention of moving Kleiman’s assets under own control following the latter’s death. Per a recent court document, Jonathan Warren, the developer of peer-to-peer messenger Bitmessage, has gone on record saying that some of the Bitmessages produced by Wright as evidence were faked. More specifically, Warren testified that the Nov 2012 Bitmessage exchanges between Kleiman and Wright regarding the formation of the Tulip Trust appear forged. When asked about the Bitmessages dated Nov 6 and Nov 13, 2012, with subject lines “The Trust Process,” “Regarding the Trust Process,” and “1933,” Warren stated that they didn’t seem genuine as Bitmessage was not publicly released until Nov 19. He confirmed that Kleiman and Wright didn’t have access to the communications protocol before its public release. Worth noting here is that forgery is a felony in all 50 US states and is punishable by probation, fines, prison time, and restitution.

Crypto Twitter vs Craig Wright Supporters

Meanwhile, some Craig Wright supporters took it upon themselves to produce counter-evidence (on Twitter) to prove that the Bitmessage conversation between Kleiman and Wright were, in fact, legit. Wright had claimed during court proceedings that Bitmessage came out in July 2012. However, that is very unlikely as the domain Bitmain was registered only on Sep 2012, a Twitter user pointed out.

There are no references to Bitmessage that go that far. The domain wasn't even registered until September 27th, the wiki doesn't contain a link to the binary until November 20th. It was announced on Bitcointalk on November 28th. Where did Wright get it from?

— Peter Šurda (@PeterSurda) July 7, 2019

A Craig Wright supporter shot back by pointing out that the domain Bitmain was actually registered on Apr 2012.

You state Bitmessage domain wasn't registered til 9/27/12. But why does this domain profile show registrant Jonathan Warren created it earlier which was on 4/13/2012?https://t.co/fJYRaWFVOG@ionstorm @22centurycrypto pic.twitter.com/XV69lIEGGf

— Marianne Jett (@TweetyBirdbrain) August 15, 2019

The explanation to that little mystery was, however, relatively simple.

That's .com, not .org. There isn't anything on .com: https://t.co/KGPs6SUIhj

— Peter Šurda (@PeterSurda) August 15, 2019

Meanwhile, some users are now going after people standing in solidarity with the self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator by calling them out publicly.

Remember the names and faces who help facilitate scammers. https://t.co/byoWgt3fbu

— mr.hodl 🌕🍿 (@MrHodl) August 15, 2019

Do share your take on the never-ending controversies surrounding Craig Wright in the comments below. Buy and trade cryptocurrencies with a 100x multiplier on our partner exchange, StormGain.

---

Images are courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter.