
Craig Wright ordered to hand over half of his alleged Bitcoin holdings - gcoleman
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/28/australian-who-says-he-invented-bitcoin-ordered-to-hand-over-up-to-5bn
======
timwaagh
It seems like the heirs of the other guy are finding legal ways to rob an
insane person. It's gross the judge has not apparantly even considered this.
Wright is a pathological liar. He makes stuff up constantly to get attention.
Although this is a huge flaw, it's unreasonable to allow this to create facts
for some other party that weren't proven in the normal way, ie a written
contract.

~~~
Vespasian
The legal presumptions is that adult persons are able to stand in court and
tell the truth. Declaring someone insane (is this even possible in civil
cases?) is intentionally hard and must not be used to protect notorious liars.

It's not the plaintiffs fault that Wright sticks to these highly unlikely and
susceptible claims. If he is unwilling (because he fears possible sanctions)
to come straight, it is own doing.

Maybe he got caught in his own web of lies (an investigation by the Australian
tax is mentioned in the order) and sees no way to step back. Maybe he fears
the shame of being exposed. Who knows.

I'm sure there is ample legal precedence to establish partnerships and shares
in common property in situations without a formal agreement.

~~~
SomeOldThrow
Able to tell the truth, but not will. Courts still need to exercise judgement
in evaluating claims.

~~~
Vespasian
The comment I replied to complained that the court did not consider that
Wright is a "pathological liar" who constantly seeks attention.

The order makes it clear that the court did consider this... against Wright.
The Judge writes

"During his testimony, Dr. Wright’s demeanor did not impress me as someone who
was telling the truth. When it was favorable to him, Dr. Wright appeared to
have an excellent memory and a scrupulous attention to detail. Otherwise, Dr.
Wright was belligerent and evasive."

That does not sound like someone unable to understand what he is saying.

------
zelly
Forget whether he actually has any bitcoin—there's no way he (or anyone else)
would just hand over 500 000 coins just because some local judge said so.
That's the whole point of bitcoin: It can't be confiscated. 500k BTC is enough
to buy many lifetimes of freedom somewhere on the planet, even if you are
wanted dead or alive in a first world country.

~~~
throwaway_law
>That's the whole point of bitcoin: It can't be confiscated

Sure, if you rob a bank and bury the money it can't be confiscated either.

However, if you are ordered by a Court to turn over funds (bitcoin or
otherwise) and you do not comply with the court order, you can be held in
contempt of court and arrested until you comply with the court order.

What good is "many lifetimes of freedom" if you only have 1 life and you're
not free?

~~~
zelly
First of all there is no debtor's prison in the USA. Even if he unequivocally
had and owed 500k btc, he could just say no and go about his business. But
even if this was a criminal case, the only way the government can get his
coins would be:

\- torture

\- imprisonment and then finding his private keys written down in his house
(or similar opsec fail)

This is in contrast to bank/financial accounts (easily garnished by court
order), physical paper currency (easily seized by a SWAT team), or physical
gold (easily seized by a SWAT team).

They can put you in jail, but they can't take your btc.

~~~
throwaway_law
>First of all there is no debtor's prison in the USA.

Who said debtor's prison?

There is a difference between going to jail for a debt and violating a court
order, even if that court order is to turn over assets. Why don't you look up
the penalties for violating a court order (HINT: civil or criminal the
remedies are the same). In fact not only can violating a court order from a
civil court result in imprisonment, additional criminal charges can occur for
the violation itself, so you can be sitting in jail anyway and be hit with
criminal charges.

>he could just say no and go about his business.

You think you can just ignore a court order without penalty? Why would anyone
comply with a court order then? I'll tell you why, because they Courts have
broad powers including imprisonment until you comply (even orders from civil
cases).

>They can put you in jail, but they can't take your btc.

Yes, I think I acknowledged that, just as they can't take the cash you robbed
from a bank and buried either (notwithstanding your point about how easy it is
to seize). How is SWAT going to seize cash that they can't find?

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tomglynch
Seems it was proven he doesn't own those bitcoins, so he's meant to be handing
over half of nothing, which is still nothing.

Edit: My statement is incorrect. The amount of bitcoins Craig Wright has
access to was not determined in the case, but potentially could be none.

~~~
FDSGSG
How could you possibly prove that he doesn't own those bitcoins? You can prove
control, but not lack of ownership unless you just burn the coins.

~~~
dunkelheit
Wright tried to prove that he doesn't _control_ the bitcoins he mined prior to
2013 due to blind trusts, secret sharing schemes and various other excuses.
The court ruled that this story is hogwash.

~~~
DagAgren
The actual situation is this: Wright does not control those bitcoins, because
he is not Satoshi Nakamoto, just a conman.

He tried to explain the fact that he can't control them with the nonsense
story about blind trusts, which the court soundly rejected for being a very
obvious lie.

The court never decided on whether or not he was Satoshi Nakamoto, as both
parties are happy to proceed on the assumption that he is.

~~~
crtasm
Expanding on that, from TFA:

"Reinhart said at the start of his ruling the court “is not required to
decide, and does not decide” whether Wright is Nakamoto, and the court was not
required to decide and did not decide how much bitcoin Wright controls today."

------
ericb
So, what are the possible outcomes now? He does not have the bitcoin, so what
can he do?

\- Flee to another country?

\- Admit he's not Satoshi?

\- Claim the trust "malfunctioned"?

\- Appeal?

Do these ultimately boil down to flee the country, or get jailed for contempt?

~~~
Taniwha
or for perjury

------
dunkelheit
(IANAL) The headline is misleading. From the court order:

"the Court deems the following facts to be established for purposes of this
action: (1) Dr. Wright and David Kleiman entered into a 50/50 partnership to
develop Bitcoin intellectual property and to mine bitcoin; (2) any Bitcoin-
related intellectual property developed by Dr. Wright prior to David Kleiman’s
death was property of the partnership, (3) all bitcoin mined by Dr. Wright
prior to David Kleiman’s death (“the partnership’s bitcoin”) was property of
the partnership when mined; and (4) Plaintiffs presently retain an ownership
interest in the partnership’s bitcoin, and any assets traceable to them".

Also from the order (and quoted in the article): "The Court also is not
required to decide, and does not decide,how much bitcoin, if any, Dr. Wright
controls today. For purposes of this proceeding, the Court accepts Dr.
Wright’s representation that he controlled (directly or indirectly) some
bitcoin on December 31, 2013, and that he continues to control some today."

In other words, Kleiman's estate gets half of some indeterminate amount of
bitcoin that Wright mined prior to Kleiman's death. Which as well may be zero,
not $5bn.

~~~
viach
> In other words, Kleiman's estate gets half of some indeterminate amount of
> bitcoin that Wright mined prior to Kleiman's death. Which as well may be
> zero, not $5bn.

If Wright is in legal field, I suppose he is in some way forced to make his
Bitcoin sell orders public (taxes, anti-laundering regulations etc). So that
it is very much decidable, even if not how much he owns, but how much he is
spending and when these particular Bitcoins were created.

~~~
tomglynch
In 2015 the Australian Tax Office searched Craig Wright's home due to possible
tax evasion [1]. I'm not sure of the outcome though. [1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-f...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/bitcoin-
founder-craig-wrights-home-raided-by-australian-police)

------
uoylj
Wizsec commentary: [https://blog.wizsec.jp/2019/08/kleiman-v-wright-
part-5.html](https://blog.wizsec.jp/2019/08/kleiman-v-wright-part-5.html)

Full court ruling:
[https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.521536...](https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.521536/gov.uscourts.flsd.521536.277.0.pdf)

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d33
This is absurd on so many levels. For example, it's pretty obvious that
Bitcoin cannot be valued based on its exchange price in such huge quantities -
if any party decided to sell $5bn worth of BTC, the price would obviously go
down dramatically at this point. What's the logic behind this order?

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
There are indeed many absurd things about this case, but that's not one of
them: the value of _anything_ will collapse if you try to sell a significant
fraction of the world's total supply at once.

~~~
sk5t
"I'm sorry, your honor, the laws of supply and demand make it unpalatable to
comply with the court's order."

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
As noted elsewhere, the court is demanding that Wright hand over half the
bitcoins, not $5B in USD.

~~~
sk5t
I agree, although this is not the point to which your original post, and my
concurring post, respond. _Had_ the court ordered liquidation--of bitcoin,
hogs, apartment blocks, whatever--it seems unlikely that market volatility
would stay the court's hand. (Again, we agree about this.)

