Craig Wright, the controversial Australian computer scientist and self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin are allegedly unable to provide a list of all his public bitcoin addresses that he owned before December 2013. On Friday, Wright said at a federal court hearing in West Palm Beach, Florida that he was unable to comply with the court’s May 2019 order to produce the list and neither was he able to access the coins in the said wallet addresses associated with those public bitcoin addresses. Wright and Kleiman reportedly mined more than 1 million bitcoins between the years of 2009 and 2010, an amount half of which the Kleiman estate is claiming to be under the possession of Wright and should be returned to the rightful owner.
In order to prove the existence of the coins, the South Florida court ordered Wright to produce a list of all his bitcoin addresses prior to December 2013. Friday’s hearing was to submit the list to the attorneys but this failed to happen. Wright continued his narrative about being the creator of Bitcoin, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright said that he brought in Kleiman back to help him in obfuscating and erasing his online activities, at least those that could associate him to the pseudonym Satoshi.
I brought in Dave because he was a friend and he knew who I was and he was a forensic expert, and I wanted to wipe everything I had to do with Bitcoin from the public record.
Wright claimed that the reason for wanting his identity disassociated with Bitcoin was because back in 2010, the coin became notorious for being used by nefarious internet users to trade drugs and other illegal activities such as arms dealerships and child pornography.
However, Kleiman passed on in 2013 and with him, according to Wright, went the critical information that could enable him to access the millions of bitcoins. All the information about the wallets holding the coins and the private keys were under the possession of Kleiman before his death. Wright is, however, comfortable not having access to ‘his’ coins.
My wife and I consider it’s too much money. I’ve got enough now… and we worry what that amount of money would do to the kids.
The hearing, however, took a turn for the worse during Wright’s interrogation with emotions taking over him as he responded to some inquiries. He even claimed not being able to see well the documents before him asking the court “Does anyone have any reading glasses?” At one time he became overwhelmed throwing some documents to the ground, an act that earned him a threat from the judge.
The hearing went into recess awaiting another court date with expert witnesses. Wright filed an intention earlier this week to call on three expert witnesses – Kevin Madure, Brett Roberson, and Steve Shadders – in addition to him taking the witness stand.
