US judge rules Craig Wright has 21 days to prove he is Satoshi
A US district Judge has ruled that Craig Wright will have additional time to prove he could still be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of the one and only Bitcoin. Specifically, the judge’s ruling comes in the ongoing legal battle between Craig Wright and the estate of late Dave Kleiman, Wright’s former associate.
The legal battle continues
Back in August of 2019, Craig was ordered by a US court to concede half the Bitcoin he had mined together with David Keliman, Wright’s former partner. This came following a lengthy legal battle between Wright and Kleiman’s estate.
The verdict was especially notable seeing as Wright and Keliman has reportedly mined about 1.1 million btc together. As such, 50% of these assets would represent an enormous amount and a sell-off could lead to characteristic market volatility.
However, it seems as though cryptocurrency observers may not have to worry about this. Rather, court documents filed on January 10th this year with a US district court in Florida reveal that the sanction order from last August was not proper.
In the August trial, US magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ruled that Wright had lied under oath, specifically, that he had presented falsified documents to the court. This led Judge Reinhart to recommend that Wright would hand half of the Bitcoin he and Kleiman mined to the Kleiman estate.
Craig Wright February 3rd deadline
That said, it appears as though Reinhart’s ruling wasn’t entirely proper, as a new court order takes into account the fact the Wright’s Bitcoin holdings remain unknown. As such, the court has awarded Wright until the 3rd of February to prove his Bitcoin ownership along with his 2019 testimony.
More specifically, Wright had said that he did not have access to the Bitcoin he owned, but that these were allegedly held in three “Tulip Trusts”. Moreover, the passwords to these Tulip Trusts would supposedly be delivered to Wright via bonded courier in January of 2020.
Of course, the date has now come and gone, but the court is allowing some additional time to receive these pass-codes from this elusive courier. That being said, the court is still sceptical over whether this will indeed happen as per the below comments:
[…] the Court questions whether it is remotely plausible that the mysterious “bonded courier” is going to arrive, let alone that he will arrive in January 2020 as the Defendant now contends. However, given that the Defendant maintains that he should at least be afforded this opportunity, the Court will indulge him this much.
Notably, February 3rd is the first day that the court in question will be open, after Wright’s deadline of January 31st. As such, it looks as if Wright only has 21 days left if he wants to escape “additional sanctions”, as the court puts it.
Meanwhile, bitcoin SV has pumped over 25% in the last 24-hours, as the cryptocurrency market experiences notable upside momentum after months of sell-side pressure.
