Craig Wright's Latest Escapade -- Give me the bitcoins I stole from Mt. Gox!

[odolvlobo]

Craig Wright (aka Faketoshi) is once again making legal threats that can only be described as absurd.

In this round, his law firm sent letters to developers and organizations involved with BTC, BCH, BCHABC, and BSV, claiming that the developers must give him access to the coins at two addresses or face legal action. According to the letter, hackers managed to obtain the private keys to these two addresses on February 5, 2020 and then erase the originals.

1. One of the addresses appears to hold bitcoins stolen from Mt. Gox. Why would Faketoshi implicate himself in the theft of bitcoins from Mt. Gox?
2. Apparently, Faketoshi couldn't be bothered to back up private keys containing millions of dollars worth of bitcoins. That fact damages the credibility of his claim.
3. The demand is impossible to fulfill, at least for the BTC and BCH chains.
4. A letter was sent to his own BSV developers.

Here are  the letters: https://www.ontier.net/ia/a1letter-before-action-from-ttl.pdf

Obviously, there must be some rational motive behind this. I can think of two possible motives:

1. The purpose is to establish the claim that Faketoshi once had a lot of bitcoins, but now he no longer has any. Perhaps this is preparation for the classic "I lost my keys in a boating accident" defense. It looks like he has lost the lawsuit by Ira Kleiman, so he will be on the hook for a lot of bitcoins, and he might be trying to plead poverty in order to avoid having to pay.

2. There are about 110,000 coins at those two addresses, and the BSV is worth about $20 million. He might be laying the legal (and moral) groundwork to justify confiscation of the BSV from those two addresses. That is something that he probably could pull off.

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[androyster]

Craig Wright (aka Faketoshi) is once again making legal threats that can only be described as absurd.

In this round, his law firm sent letters to developers and organizations involved with BTC, BCH, BCHABC, and BSV, claiming that the developers must give him access to the coins at two addresses or face legal action. According to the letter, hackers managed to obtain the private keys to these two addresses on February 5, 2020 and then erase the originals.

1. One of the addresses appears to hold bitcoins stolen from Mt. Gox. Why would Faketoshi implicate himself in the theft of bitcoins from Mt. Gox?
2. Apparently, Faketoshi couldn't be bothered to back up the private keys to addresses containing millions of dollars worth of bitcoins.
3. The demand is impossible to fulfill, at least for the BTC and BCH chains.
4. A letter was sent to his own BSV developers.

Here are  the letters: https://www.ontier.net/ia/a1letter-before-action-from-ttl.pdf

Obviously, there must be some rational motive behind this. I can think of two possible motives:

1. The purpose is to establish the claim that Faketoshi once had a lot of bitcoins, but now he no longer has any. Perhaps this is preparation for the classic "I lost my keys in a boating accident" defense. It looks like he has lost the lawsuit by Ira Kleiman, so he will be on the hook for a lot of bitcoins, and he might be trying to plead poverty in order to avoid having to pay.

2. There are about 110,000 coins at those two addresses, and the BSV is worth about $20 million. He might be laying the legal (and moral) groundwork to justify confiscation of the BSV from those two addresses. That is something that he probably could pull off.

Without those keys he's screwed.  Good luck on that.

[fiulpro]

See the guy is an absolute nightmare.
The guy literally is doing that since years and everyone know that he stole those Bitcoins and even the court ordered for him to stop making such claims. He have no idea what he is doing to his image and to the whole image of Bitcoins itself. The more he does it the more it feels like the knee Mr. Satoshi very well and be knows that something bad had happened to him and he won't come and fight him about it. This is real dad the guy is extremely distressing for the community. I do think the Bitcoin firms should all try and make sure he does not continue with such lame excuses and things.
If he is Mr. Satoshi how does he not know "not your keys not your coins"
Why can't he log in from the account on the forum ?? This is immensely sad that people would do something like that to him. Honestly I don't even know why wiki explains him like this :

Craig Steven Wright is an Australian computer scientist and businessman. He has publicly claimed to be the main part of the team that created bitcoin, and the identity behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. These claims are regarded as false by much of the media and the cryptocurrency community

They should refrain from writing " he claims " but media says it's false!! No the court ruled he is a scammer what media are you talking about?

[Tytanowy Janusz]

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Oh and you can fool no one if you are CW (AKA notorious liar, jester and man with mental issues)

Abraham Lincoln

[NathanielParker]

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Oh and you can fool no one if you are CW (AKA notorious liar, jester and man with mental issues)

Abraham Lincoln

why does he has a law firm? who doesn't the government prove that he's Satoshi or not? since he can't log in that account and in view of all these lies, I do think he should be banned from anything about Satoshi! or maybe he and the government colluded to get bitcoin and other profits

[AGD]

Isn't there a way for somebody, who lost coins with the Mt Gox incident to file a report to the police? I would if I had.

[DapanasFruit]

Craig Wright is obviously very wrong on many things he had done, is doing and will probably do in the future. And I believe that his surname will one day be changed to Wrong, no more Wright. The man is probably thinking that since he is getting out of the limelight and that all people in the world of cryptocurrency must be needing some entertainment that is why he is pulling this latest big joke of his. Unfortunately, even the court is not allowing to be dragged by his shenanigans. Only fools like himself would believe the many claims he made in the past and more so of the things he will probably be claiming later. Still, am crediting him for such a very creative move, worthy of a movie in fact.

[bL4nkcode]

Isn't there a way for somebody, who lost coins with the Mt Gox incident to file a report to the police? I would if I had.

There are many users and many would do only if they can afford to take time (wasting) on court since I guess most of them can afford the fees.

[bitcoinstonk]

What Craig Wright is doing is very clever and very dangerous, and the Bitcoin Core team need to understand what he's doing and why.

He is *not* primarily trying to get the bitcoins back from the 1Feex address. That's just an excuse to file the lawsuit. His primary intention is to establish the legal precedent that courts can force the bitcoin developers to confiscate money from one address and give it to another address.

And he will succeed if the bitcoin developers don't prepare properly for the court proceedings. Here's what will happen unless the devs take it seriously and prepare good legal arguments:

* The devs will say it's technically impossible to give him access to those funds. They will be hoping that nobody understands bitcoin well enough to prove that it is in fact possible in a way that a court can understand, and they will try to create confusion in the hope that everybody will give up trying to understand.

* Wright named the Bitcoin SV developers as defendants for precisely this purpose. He will release a new version of the Bitcoin SV code that has an exception to the transaction verification rules for a single transaction paying from the 1Feex address to an address that he controls. The exception to the transaction verification rules will *not require a valid signature* from the 1Feex address. That transaction will be hard coded into the source code. It will be regarded as valid automatically, without a signature check.

* He will say to the court: Look, it is obviously possible. I did it. The Bitcoin Core devs can do the same thing.

* The devs will try to invent reasons why the same things can't be done with Bitcoin Core, and all of those reasons will be bullshit. They will be attempts to cause confusion, and they won't work. The reasons given will be either incomprehensible gibberish about obscure technical details, or they will be arguments that the users of the bitcoin software can choose what software to run, and they can't be forced to run software that breaks the existing rules for verifying transactions.

* Wright's lawyers will argue, successfully, that many updates have been made to the bitcoin software that change the rules for processing transactions, and that updates are made on an ongoing basis. They will argue, successfully, that nothing prevents Bitcoin Core from adding an exception for a single transaction to a new update. Core will argue that doing that will cause a fork in the blockchain, as old versions of the software will reject the new transaction as invalid and will reject every block containing it and subsequent blocks. Wright's lawyers will argue that requiring users to upgrade to the latest version of software in order to continue using it is normal and does not cause catastrophic system failure of the type that Core are claiming will happen.

* Wright's lawyers will be correct, and they will win. The court will find that the Bitcoin Core devs have the power to release new versions of the software and announce to users that upgrading is mandatory for the software to continue to operate successfully.

* The court may or may not require Core to actually do this in the case of the 1Feex address. Wright may or may not be awarded those coins. But he doesn't care about that. That's not what he's trying to accomplish.

* The true reason that Core devs would never seize and use the power to confiscate funds from one address and give it to another without a valid signed transaction is *principle*. It is extremely harmful to Bitcoin for anybody to have that power. But the court will rule that the principles of Law override the principles of good money. The court will rule that in cases where the law requires that assets be taken from one person and given to another, the Core devs must do that, because they *do* have that power, even if they don't want that power and don't want to use it.

This is very bad. It is a serious mistake to laugh at Craig Wright and ignore what he's trying to do. Courts and governments all over the world will begin issuing demands to the Bitcoin Core devs to take money from one address and give it to another address, under penalty of being held in contempt of court and imprisoned until they comply.

His claims about having his keys stolen and losing access to that address are most likely false. They're just an excuse to bring a case before a court and get the court to rule that the Core devs have the power to seize bitcoins, by hard coding transaction verification exceptions into the code. That's the real motivation, and it's a real threat.

[Searing]

I've always said this about the case against him by the Dave Kleiman estate going on.

He will claim the following on that if he wins or loses

1) He wins the case and not enough evidence that he ripped off Dave Kleiman back in the day, he will 'say' proves
he is Satoshi in that why would the Dave Kleiman estate state so and spend big bucks to take him to court.

2) He will say if he loses the case and is told to pay the Kleiman Estate that this proves he is Satoshi...even as
he runs to a U.K. country without extradition on civil USA court manners such as this.

The same thing, if he 'loses' the case on BTC with Mt.Gox estate...well nothing changes...but if they 'settle' again
proves I am Satoshi he claims...if nothing else in the news again to 'so doubt' that I'm coming after you with
stupid lawsuits.

Also with the websites taking down the www pages with the white paper on them. If they do so 'great' this proves he has power and could be Satoshi on them...if they don't take it down (and small enough) the white paper, then he can sue the site..which can't afford to fight his claims. (in the USA anyway).
if...people then send $$$ to the site to offset $$$ he spends to sue them...proves he is Satoshi because if a 'non-issue'
why the big deal about keeping a web page up on the white paper if he is not Satoshi...if they take it down
proves I'm Satoshi

the list goes on ..hard to 'disprove' a negative and he really has to keep this game going to keep out of Aussie
Tax Jail. So rinse/wash/repeat.

Round and Round it goes...I suppose if he was to 'pass-on' he would have 'enough' relatives convinced he 'is' Satoshi for this to
continue....the cycle of lawsuits.

what a cluster...

Brad

[20kevin20]

He already has a lost case - the man is clearly desperate to "legally" steal coins from anyone he possibly could, but I only see his cases and defense getting worse as time passes. At this point, it's literally impossible to check his lawsuits without noticing how desperate of a thief he is.

Whatever happens, I do not think there is any way he could truly prove anything of substance so in the end, the only bad thing that possibly happens is.. He only gets more BSV fans to back him up. That's it. In the history books, he will be noted but under the name of Craingelord (see what I did there?) and the worst pretender in the crypto world.

All in all, he's a douche and nothing will go as planned. I mean, I still have a little hope that someone will crack his imbecile plans one day...

[odolvlobo]

...
* The devs will say it's technically impossible to give him access to those funds. They will be hoping that nobody understands bitcoin well enough to prove that it is in fact possible in a way that a court can understand, and they will try to create confusion in the hope that everybody will give up trying to understand.

* Wright named the Bitcoin SV developers as defendants for precisely this purpose. He will release a new version of the Bitcoin SV code that has an exception to the transaction verification rules for a single transaction paying from the 1Feex address to an address that he controls. The exception to the transaction verification rules will *not require a valid signature* from the 1Feex address. That transaction will be hard coded into the source code. It will be regarded as valid automatically, without a signature check.

* He will say to the court: Look, it is obviously possible. I did it. The Bitcoin Core devs can do the same thing.
...

It is not "technically impossible", but it is practically infeasible.

He doesn't even need the Bitcoin Core devs to make changes to Bitcoin Core. He can fork the repository and make the changes to Bitcoin Core himself. Then, he can use his version to claim the bitcoins from those addresses himself. Nobody will care because he will be on his own fork of the Bitcoin chain as soon as he does that.

In order to succeed, the court must order the owners of every node in the world (including miners) to use his version of Bitcoin Core. That is practically infeasible.

Bitcoin SV is a different situation. I don't think he will have any problem getting the changes into the Bitcoin SV reference client. The question here is, will users (especially exchanges) follow his fork? They might, but he will have the same problem as with Bitcoin Core if they don't.

[androyster]

...
* The devs will say it's technically impossible to give him access to those funds. They will be hoping that nobody understands bitcoin well enough to prove that it is in fact possible in a way that a court can understand, and they will try to create confusion in the hope that everybody will give up trying to understand.

* Wright named the Bitcoin SV developers as defendants for precisely this purpose. He will release a new version of the Bitcoin SV code that has an exception to the transaction verification rules for a single transaction paying from the 1Feex address to an address that he controls. The exception to the transaction verification rules will *not require a valid signature* from the 1Feex address. That transaction will be hard coded into the source code. It will be regarded as valid automatically, without a signature check.

* He will say to the court: Look, it is obviously possible. I did it. The Bitcoin Core devs can do the same thing.
...

It is not "technically impossible", but it is practically infeasible.

He doesn't even need the Bitcoin Core devs to make changes to Bitcoin Core. He can fork the repository and make the changes to Bitcoin Core himself. Then, he can use his version to claim the bitcoins from those addresses himself. Nobody will care because he will be on his own fork of the Bitcoin chain as soon as he does that.

In order to succeed, the court must order the owners of every node in the world (including miners) to use his version of Bitcoin Core. That is practically infeasible.

Bitcoin SV is a different situation. I don't think he will have any problem getting the changes into the Bitcoin SV reference client. The question here is, will users (especially exchanges) follow his fork? They might, but he will have the same problem as with Bitcoin Core if they don't.

I'm a miner, no way in hell would I be forced to do crap.  I'll shoot them all  with my legal machine guns before that happens.

[bitcoinstonk]

It is not "technically impossible", but it is practically infeasible.

He doesn't even need the Bitcoin Core devs to make changes to Bitcoin Core. He can fork the repository and make the changes to Bitcoin Core himself. Then, he can use his version to claim the bitcoins from those addresses himself. Nobody will care because he will be on his own fork of the Bitcoin chain as soon as he does that.

In order to succeed, the court must order the owners of every node in the world (including miners) to use his version of Bitcoin Core. That is practically infeasible.

Bitcoin SV is a different situation. I don't think he will have any problem getting the changes into the Bitcoin SV reference client. The question here is, will users (especially exchanges) follow his fork? They might, but he will have the same problem as with Bitcoin Core if they don't.

I'm afraid this is where it's not going to be possible to deceive the court. The court will understand immediately that the power to decide what software people run when they use Bitcoin Core is held by the Bitcoin Core devs.

If Bitcoin Core releases a new version of the software, it will be the official software from the official maintainers of Bitcoin Core, and that is what people will run when they're using bitcoin.

Indeed, he can make his own version of it, and nobody will use it. They will use the official releases from Bitcoin Core. The court will understand this. The court will understand that in order to give Wright the relief he claims, Bitcoin Core will need to be coerced to change their software. The court will understand that asking Wright to make a copy of the software and make the desired modifications to it is not an acceptable substitute for coercing Bitcoin Core to include it in the official release of the software.

[AGD]

OK. Exactly what I was saying a few posts earlier:

https://twitter.com/BtcDanny/status/1364729604863389696

Guy who lost Bitcoins at Mt Gox takes CSW's claims serious and issues legal notice to him over stolen funds in 1Feex address.
Certainly others will follow, just for the sake of shutting down the troll.

[bryant.coleman]

I always believed that both Mark Karpeles and Craig Wright had some involvement in the Mt Gox robbery. Back then, the total worth of coins that were stolen were estimated at around $450 million (BTC650,000). As per the current exchange rates, the value of the coins that were stolen back then has increased to around $30 billion. I feel bad for the users who lost their life savings in this robbery. I was fortunate not to store my coins in Mt Gox, but still lost some mBTC.

7 years have passed since this incident, and the victims are yet to receive any sort of compensation. Some BTC200,000 were recovered from the cold wallets, but the majority of this stash was sold off at very low prices by Nobuaki Kobayashi (Mt Gox bankruptcy trustee). Some of the people who lost their money has committed suicide. At least now, they should reimburse what is remaining in the cold wallets to the victims of the robbery.

[20kevin20]

Well, maybe it was just Craig's lawyers getting sick of him and willing to screw him all over. Has any of Craig's moves been rational..? All he's ever done was only redeem his stupidity over and over.

Say his action succeeds and he legally gets to basically enforce a change in Bitcoin Core. Don't the rest of us just all fork off the chain, redeeming his coins worthless? Even if something happens to any of us, he forgets that we're in a decentralized environment where every attempt of manipulation and control can be forked off into a worthless garbage blockchain.

[odolvlobo]

I'm afraid this is where it's not going to be possible to deceive the court. The court will understand immediately that the power to decide what software people run when they use Bitcoin Core is held by the Bitcoin Core devs.
If Bitcoin Core releases a new version of the software, it will be the official software from the official maintainers of Bitcoin Core, and that is what people will run when they're using bitcoin.

There is no need for deception. In the unlikely scenario in which Bitcoin Core developers are somehow coerced into publishing a version for CSW, then what happens if they attach this disclaimer:

We are required to release this version, but we recommend that you do not use it.

The court can't stop them from saying that.

[Obito]

Well, maybe it was just Craig's lawyers getting sick of him and willing to screw him all over. Has any of Craig's moves been rational..? All he's ever done was only redeem his stupidity over and over.

Say his action succeeds and he legally gets to basically enforce a change in Bitcoin Core. Don't the rest of us just all fork off the chain, redeeming his coins worthless? Even if something happens to any of us, he forgets that we're in a decentralized environment where every attempt of manipulation and control can be forked off into a worthless garbage blockchain.

Why would the lawyers get sick of what he is doing, they are after the money and in my opinion, they loved that CSW is doing this kind of shenanigans because this means they get paid for their services. I don't think that he will win this because those bitcoin that was lost in his care should be payed if he were to in a strange way, won this case.

[NotATether]

1. One of the addresses appears to hold bitcoins stolen from Mt. Gox. Why would Faketoshi implicate himself in the theft of bitcoins from Mt. Gox?

He's fully aware that he's claiming to own stolen coins and frankly it makes me wonder why law enforcement isn't hounding him for "admitting" that.

It's almost as if a lawsuit about this petty threat is a higher priority to them than the stolen Mt Gox BTC and it's quite damning that exchanges and custodial services can pull exit scams and the worst they get is a scammer tag on bitcointalk (if they even have a presence there).