31 ms·

Craig Wright sues Bitcoin Core developers to recover “stolen” coins [pdf]

34 points by wp381640 6y ago

junippor 6y ago
Cue naive bitcoiners: "you can't move bitcoin if you don't have the address key LOL"
- noneeeed 6y ago
  Naive bitcoiner here. So what's the deal here? Would this essentially just require everyone to collectively agree that he owned the coins?
  - eklitzke 6y ago
    Yes it would require a hard fork of bitcoin, which of course would also mean that everyone using bitcoin would have to agree to adopt the new forked version.
    - that_guy_iain 6y ago
      Really it would be more of getting the developers to settle since they wouldn't be able to make everyone adopt the new fork version.
      - everybodyknows 6y ago
        Right, that’s the only way to make sense of the litigation threats. Squeeze a few hundred thousand out of each dev, settle for a fraction of a penny on the pound. >The current value in sterling of the digital assets at the Addresses is approximately £3.65bn, ...
    - castlecrasher2 6y ago
      I can't wait for the legal system to start interfering with crypto coins. The effects will be interesting to say the least.
    - noneeeed 6y ago
      Sounds like that could be fun to try an enforce.
    - meetups323 6y ago
      Which of course would mean that the entire foundation of bitcoin gets called into question (if courts can move it around against owner's wills) and the value likely takes a big hit.
ccmcarey 6y ago
Insanity. He's demanding a hard fork (the only way to move bitcoins out of that wallet) so he can recover bitcoins in an address that he has no proof that he owns.
- junippor 6y ago
  I think it's genius. I'm glad scumbags like this is exist. They make our systems more robust.
  - eurusdac 6y ago
    Yes, when Craig Wright first came along it was great because you could tell from Bitcoiners' reactions how susceptible to hype/bullshit they were. Either you accepted obvious truths about how crypto works, or you didn't. Knowing this about members of that community in particular was hugely helpful. (Now even the grifters, hype artists and clowns have had enough of Craig's bullshit.)
  - blunte 6y ago
    Not always. Sometimes they get elected into positions of power and do far greater damage than could have been imagined. As it becomes normalized to make any claim with no proof, and to gather followers who believe you, we regress as a civilization.
    - junippor 6y ago
      Gee I don't know who you're thinking about :-)
  - wmf 6y ago
    If Tether and Craig Wright were smacked down propmtly they might make our systems more robust, but letting their bullshit drag on for years and years hurts the ecosystem IMO.
- petertodd 6y ago
  Re: the 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF address Craig Wright is claiming, others believe the coins in it were stolen from Mt Gox: https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-mt-gox-ceo-mark-karpeles-craig-wright-is-either-a-thief-or-a-fraud https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-mt-gox-ceo-mark-karpel... https://blog.wizsec.jp/2020/06/mtgox-march-2011-theft.html https://blog.wizsec.jp/2020/06/mtgox-march-2011-theft.html
christiansakai 6y ago
Is this Craig Wright (FakeToshi) a real Computer Scientist? After reading the PDF I get the impression that he (or the lawyers) have zero clue about blockchain. Or this is just an attempt to troll (Tulip Trading Ltd)? What am I missing?
- smcl 6y ago
  He definitely has some level of IT knowledge but I have a feeling he's just a confidence trickster who's been making his way through life telling an escalating series of lies until he finally bit off more than he could chew by claiming he was Satoshi and by defrauding the Kleiman estate. The reason I say this is because around that time courts became involved (in Australia and Florida) and you could see the lies unfold in real time and you could see him scrambling to recover ... by weaving more lies into his tale. There is no way any of this ends well for Craig Wright.
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    Any article?
    - smcl 6y ago
      Even better, this episode sums the entire thing up well: https://m.soundcloud.com/alabpodcast/episode-3-faketoshi-the-perfect-client https://m.soundcloud.com/alabpodcast/episode-3-faketoshi-the...
      - christiansakai 6y ago
        Thanks
        smcl 6y ago
        You're welcome, I'm always happy to share ALAB :-) The whole thing is pretty wild but one of my lasting memories of that episode is Craig losing his temper in a deposition because someone showed him a printout of an email he sent and he was claiming "that's not an email, it's a piece of paper". Incredible. Also (unrelated to Craig Wright and Bitcoin) if you liked the style of that podcast they also did a two-parter on Alan Dershowitz called "The Bully"
deweller 6y ago
A developer should create a fork of the bitcoin repo on github, implement a patch that gives Craig whatever he wants and then send Craig a link to the forked repo.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  This would be the perfect response. Then all he needs to do is get the entire network to adopt the new chain, but that's on him not the developers.
xiphias2 6y ago
At this point all Bitcoin core developers are millionaires, they won't be afraid of legal threats.
mgerullis 6y ago
Send me Satoshis billions while you’re at it. This whole thing reads like a troll. Tulip Trading? Hard forking the main chain? Even if he could somehow make the developers fork the code, I highly doubt that the network would just silently accept that.
jcpham2 6y ago
Not your keys, not your coins Craig. You aren't Satoshi and you'll never be able to prove it and _EVERYONE_ is laughing at you buddy.
acomjean 6y ago
If I'm reading this right, he's asking the "Block Chain" not to process coins that are labeled as stolen. In the physical world and the US receiving stolen goods is a crime. I mean it would be nice to be able to mark stolen coins or coins used in ransomware as unusable... I don't see how this works in "decentralized" bitcoin universe. Also signing documents with the name of you LLC is a thing now?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mszcz 6y ago
Even reading that would be, in my opinion, a waste of time. However, just out of pure curiosity, has any poor soul been tempted enough to skim this piece of odorless excrement and can tell me how he claims the bitcoin devs did him wrong?
- jcpham2 6y ago
  He's claiming hackers stole the keys to the Satoshi addresses on Feb 5 of 2020, and "to prevent fraud" they are requesting control to the _Bitcoin Cash_ private keys for those addresses. Craig is a scammy piece of shit. Send the lawyers and demand letters this way next, please.
  - mszcz 6y ago
    Thank you, sir ;)
NakamotoSatoshi 6y ago
We have to thank Mr. Wright for providing neverending entertainment.
petertodd 6y ago
The title is incorrect. No Bitcoin Core developers have been sued. Those emails threaten legal action. But so far, they're just emails.
300bps 6y ago
For anyone not familiar... Here's a quick rundown of my understanding of the situation. Craig Wright has been claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the person/people that wrote the original Bitcoin whitepaper. To my knowledge he hasn't done anything to definitively prove his claim and has come up with a number of explanations as to why he can't prove it. One explanation he's offered is that he put the private keys to his hoard of BTC in a trust and that the trust didn't give him access until a certain date. Multiple dates he's said have come and gone with no significant developments. He's been spending most of his time promoting BSV (Bitcoin Satoshi Vision) which is a hard fork of BCH (Bitcoin Cash) which is a hard fork of original Bitcoin (BTC). The main purpose of BSV is to support fast, cheap microtransactions. Essentially, pay someone $0.00001 for reading their web content or watching their video instead of watching an ad. He's also been filing a ton of patents and sending threatening letters to people demanding they take down "his" Bitcoin whitepaper from their website. One reason all this matters is BSV may be extremely undervalued if he is really Satoshi ($204 per coin vs BTC $49,767).
- jcpham2 6y ago
  Pretty on point except everyone is tired of his stupidity at this point. His opinion is that BTC (the original) is not Bitcoin, but his twice forked shitcoin is the really real actual bitcoin.
cduzz 6y ago
At the risk of entering the "what is money" rabbithole... "Money", banks, and the financial system broadly are a system of laws, contracts, and faith. Bitcoin can clearly exist outside the modern financial system as a thing that manages a distributed ledger, but any time it attempts to become "money" it is going to smash into one or more of those. This is an example of "any regulated financial industry will need to enforce these laws, regardless of how offensive those laws are to math." This specific issue may or may not have merit, but in the long run regulation of things that can be regulated inevitable (exchanges, things that have a physical address in countries with laws, etc). Politicians and judges aren't really swayed by "it's MATH, bitch!" and in fact most of society isn't really run that way either.
stunt 6y ago
Dear Craig, Thanks for for making me smile like crazy. Bye Developer

34 points by wp381640 6y ago

junippor 6y ago

Cue naive bitcoiners: "you can't move bitcoin if you don't have the address key LOL"

noneeeed 6y ago
Naive bitcoiner here. So what's the deal here? Would this essentially just require everyone to collectively agree that he owned the coins?
- eklitzke 6y ago
  Yes it would require a hard fork of bitcoin, which of course would also mean that everyone using bitcoin would have to agree to adopt the new forked version.
  - that_guy_iain 6y ago
    Really it would be more of getting the developers to settle since they wouldn't be able to make everyone adopt the new fork version.
    - everybodyknows 6y ago
      Right, that’s the only way to make sense of the litigation threats. Squeeze a few hundred thousand out of each dev, settle for a fraction of a penny on the pound. >The current value in sterling of the digital assets at the Addresses is approximately £3.65bn, ...
  - castlecrasher2 6y ago
    I can't wait for the legal system to start interfering with crypto coins. The effects will be interesting to say the least.
  - noneeeed 6y ago
    Sounds like that could be fun to try an enforce.
  - meetups323 6y ago
    Which of course would mean that the entire foundation of bitcoin gets called into question (if courts can move it around against owner's wills) and the value likely takes a big hit.

ccmcarey 6y ago

Insanity. He's demanding a hard fork (the only way to move bitcoins out of that wallet) so he can recover bitcoins in an address that he has no proof that he owns.

junippor 6y ago
I think it's genius. I'm glad scumbags like this is exist. They make our systems more robust.
- eurusdac 6y ago
  Yes, when Craig Wright first came along it was great because you could tell from Bitcoiners' reactions how susceptible to hype/bullshit they were. Either you accepted obvious truths about how crypto works, or you didn't. Knowing this about members of that community in particular was hugely helpful. (Now even the grifters, hype artists and clowns have had enough of Craig's bullshit.)
- blunte 6y ago
  Not always. Sometimes they get elected into positions of power and do far greater damage than could have been imagined. As it becomes normalized to make any claim with no proof, and to gather followers who believe you, we regress as a civilization.
  - junippor 6y ago
    Gee I don't know who you're thinking about :-)
- wmf 6y ago
  If Tether and Craig Wright were smacked down propmtly they might make our systems more robust, but letting their bullshit drag on for years and years hurts the ecosystem IMO.
petertodd 6y ago
Re: the 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF address Craig Wright is claiming, others believe the coins in it were stolen from Mt Gox: https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-mt-gox-ceo-mark-karpeles-craig-wright-is-either-a-thief-or-a-fraud https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-mt-gox-ceo-mark-karpel... https://blog.wizsec.jp/2020/06/mtgox-march-2011-theft.html https://blog.wizsec.jp/2020/06/mtgox-march-2011-theft.html

christiansakai 6y ago

Is this Craig Wright (FakeToshi) a real Computer Scientist? After reading the PDF I get the impression that he (or the lawyers) have zero clue about blockchain. Or this is just an attempt to troll (Tulip Trading Ltd)? What am I missing?

smcl 6y ago
He definitely has some level of IT knowledge but I have a feeling he's just a confidence trickster who's been making his way through life telling an escalating series of lies until he finally bit off more than he could chew by claiming he was Satoshi and by defrauding the Kleiman estate. The reason I say this is because around that time courts became involved (in Australia and Florida) and you could see the lies unfold in real time and you could see him scrambling to recover ... by weaving more lies into his tale. There is no way any of this ends well for Craig Wright.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Any article?
  - smcl 6y ago
    Even better, this episode sums the entire thing up well: https://m.soundcloud.com/alabpodcast/episode-3-faketoshi-the-perfect-client https://m.soundcloud.com/alabpodcast/episode-3-faketoshi-the...
    - christiansakai 6y ago
      Thanks
      - smcl 6y ago
        You're welcome, I'm always happy to share ALAB :-) The whole thing is pretty wild but one of my lasting memories of that episode is Craig losing his temper in a deposition because someone showed him a printout of an email he sent and he was claiming "that's not an email, it's a piece of paper". Incredible. Also (unrelated to Craig Wright and Bitcoin) if you liked the style of that podcast they also did a two-parter on Alan Dershowitz called "The Bully"

deweller 6y ago

A developer should create a fork of the bitcoin repo on github, implement a patch that gives Craig whatever he wants and then send Craig a link to the forked repo.

gremlinsinc 6y ago
This would be the perfect response. Then all he needs to do is get the entire network to adopt the new chain, but that's on him not the developers.

xiphias2 6y ago

At this point all Bitcoin core developers are millionaires, they won't be afraid of legal threats.

mgerullis 6y ago

Send me Satoshis billions while you’re at it. This whole thing reads like a troll. Tulip Trading? Hard forking the main chain? Even if he could somehow make the developers fork the code, I highly doubt that the network would just silently accept that.

jcpham2 6y ago

Not your keys, not your coins Craig. You aren't Satoshi and you'll never be able to prove it and _EVERYONE_ is laughing at you buddy.

acomjean 6y ago

If I'm reading this right, he's asking the "Block Chain" not to process coins that are labeled as stolen. In the physical world and the US receiving stolen goods is a crime. I mean it would be nice to be able to mark stolen coins or coins used in ransomware as unusable... I don't see how this works in "decentralized" bitcoin universe. Also signing documents with the name of you LLC is a thing now?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mszcz 6y ago

Even reading that would be, in my opinion, a waste of time. However, just out of pure curiosity, has any poor soul been tempted enough to skim this piece of odorless excrement and can tell me how he claims the bitcoin devs did him wrong?

jcpham2 6y ago
He's claiming hackers stole the keys to the Satoshi addresses on Feb 5 of 2020, and "to prevent fraud" they are requesting control to the _Bitcoin Cash_ private keys for those addresses. Craig is a scammy piece of shit. Send the lawyers and demand letters this way next, please.
- mszcz 6y ago
  Thank you, sir ;)

NakamotoSatoshi 6y ago

We have to thank Mr. Wright for providing neverending entertainment.

petertodd 6y ago

The title is incorrect. No Bitcoin Core developers have been sued. Those emails threaten legal action. But so far, they're just emails.

300bps 6y ago

For anyone not familiar... Here's a quick rundown of my understanding of the situation. Craig Wright has been claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of the person/people that wrote the original Bitcoin whitepaper. To my knowledge he hasn't done anything to definitively prove his claim and has come up with a number of explanations as to why he can't prove it. One explanation he's offered is that he put the private keys to his hoard of BTC in a trust and that the trust didn't give him access until a certain date. Multiple dates he's said have come and gone with no significant developments. He's been spending most of his time promoting BSV (Bitcoin Satoshi Vision) which is a hard fork of BCH (Bitcoin Cash) which is a hard fork of original Bitcoin (BTC). The main purpose of BSV is to support fast, cheap microtransactions. Essentially, pay someone $0.00001 for reading their web content or watching their video instead of watching an ad. He's also been filing a ton of patents and sending threatening letters to people demanding they take down "his" Bitcoin whitepaper from their website. One reason all this matters is BSV may be extremely undervalued if he is really Satoshi ($204 per coin vs BTC $49,767).

jcpham2 6y ago
Pretty on point except everyone is tired of his stupidity at this point. His opinion is that BTC (the original) is not Bitcoin, but his twice forked shitcoin is the really real actual bitcoin.

cduzz 6y ago

At the risk of entering the "what is money" rabbithole... "Money", banks, and the financial system broadly are a system of laws, contracts, and faith. Bitcoin can clearly exist outside the modern financial system as a thing that manages a distributed ledger, but any time it attempts to become "money" it is going to smash into one or more of those. This is an example of "any regulated financial industry will need to enforce these laws, regardless of how offensive those laws are to math." This specific issue may or may not have merit, but in the long run regulation of things that can be regulated inevitable (exchanges, things that have a physical address in countries with laws, etc). Politicians and judges aren't really swayed by "it's MATH, bitch!" and in fact most of society isn't really run that way either.

stunt 6y ago

Dear Craig, Thanks for for making me smile like crazy. Bye Developer