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- A group made up of 12 developers is in a UK court fighting claims from a self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor that he owned 111,000 Bitcoin.
- Craig Wright has accused the group of refusing to build a backdoor mechanism that would enable his company to seize control of the Bitcoin he claims to have owned and lost.
A group of Bitcoin developers is pushing back after self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright accused them of refusing to help him seize the 111,000 Bitcoin he owns through his company, Tulip Trading. The case began in 2021 when Wright who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto sued the developers for refusing to build a backdoor mechanism that would enable his company to seize control of the Bitcoin he claims to have owned and lost. Craig Wright alleges that this stash was stolen in a hack losing him and his company billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.
Wright’s lawyers claim that the developers failed in their “fiduciary duty” by refusing to help Tulip Trading reclaim this stash.
The group made up of 12 Bitcoin developers alleges that neither Wright nor his company Tulip Trading ever held a wallet with more than 100,000 Bitcoin which he sought to reclaim. According to the group, this is a fraudulent claim by the Australian computer scientist and businessman.
Court filings from The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, an organization funded by Twitter founder and Bitcoin advocate Jack Dorsey and others, show that the developers allege that Wright’s company has “fabricated” documents to prove ownership of the tokens and now seeks fraudulently gain control over the stash.
Furthermore, the defense notes that “Dr. Wright has a long history of fraud, forgery, and dishonesty … [and is using]the English courts as an instrument of fraud.” The group alleges that there is no shred of evidence that proves that Wright or his company ever owned the wallet that held the Bitcoin in question.
Craig Wright Legal Battles Over Bitcoin
Since he publicly declared himself to be Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright has become an infamous person in the crypto community. Wright has time and again been called upon to prove that he is the real Satoshi by accessing the wallets of the real Satoshi but has failed to do so. This has led to many viewing him as a fraudster.
Related: Bitcoin SV: Wright could face sanctions for false BTC addresses
Expectedly, Craig Wright has a long history of litigating disagreements in relation to Bitcoin. Last month, a U.K. court dismissed a lawsuit in which he alleged crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken infringed on his copyright by using the name “Bitcoin.”
In 2018, a group of individuals led by Craig Wright launched Bitcoin SV (BSV). The main goal for BSV proponents was to restore the original Bitcoin protocol. Wright notes that Bitocin has steered off the original vision that he, as Satoshi, had envisioned for the protocol, hence the launch of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision a.k.a. Bitcoin SV.
