Bitcoin developer Craig Wright may admit he stole 80,000 bitcoins from Mt. Gox

Claimed ownership by a man claiming to be bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto means he stole 80,000 bitcoins from an exchange, defense attorneys say.

Bitcoins and tulip bulbs. Image: Shutterstock

In an ongoing lawsuit brought by self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor Craig Wright, lawyers for the 12 bitcoin core developers targeted by Wright have filed preliminary questions applications in the U.K. High Court. In a statement Monday, the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund said the document seeks to dismiss many of the plaintiffs’ claims.

Wright claims to own 111,000 bitcoins, which were allegedly stolen from the Mt Gox exchange. The defense noted that Wright lacked any documentation proving ownership of the missing bitcoins and accused him of falsifying the limited documentation provided to the court.

“We seek to dismiss this claim as a fraudulent claim and an abuse of process,” Enyo Law LLP attorney Timothy Elliss said in the filing. They seek disclosure and other case management directions, To enable this fraud threshold issue to be identified as a preliminary issue. "

A preliminary issues filing is a legal tool designed to address specific pre-trial issues by addressing key issues and potentially saving those involved in the proceedings time and money. The case is Tulip Trading Ltd v BSV and Other Bitcoin Associations, the former being Wright’s firm whose name is a reference to the tulip mania that swept the Netherlands in the 1630s.

The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund stated, “The application sets out the evidence that Tulip Trading must provide at preliminary trial to establish that it owns the underlying Bitcoins and asks Tulip Trading to post a bond of $1.63 million to cover costs should the case be dismissed. cost. "

Lawyers for the bitcoin core developer argued that Wright and his company do not own the bitcoins at issue in the lawsuit. If the court sided with the Bitcoin Core developer, Tulip Trading Limited would have to prove its ownership of the digital asset before the case could proceed.

Elliss further claimed that if Wright had been the owner, he would have admitted to stealing 80,000 bitcoins, worth approximately $2 billion today.

Defense attorneys wrote: “It is generally believed in the cryptocurrency community that the bitcoins in the 1Feex address originated in a well-publicized hack of a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange that occurred in March 2014. Essentially, if Dr. Wright was the 1Feex address If the owner of the bitcoins (which has been denied), then he has actually admitted to being the one who stole 80,000 BTC from Mt. Gox."

Launched in 2021 with the support of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization that supports Bitcoin developers in legal cases. In April, the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund supported the defense of Bitcoin Core developers in Wright’s lawsuit.

Lawyers for the Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, BSV Bitcoin Association and Tulip Trading Limited have not responded to requests for comment.