Self-Proclaimed Bitcoin Inventor was Ordered by US Jury to Pay $100 Million in Damages

Craig Wright is an Australian IT professional who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. Wright was sued by Dave Kleiman’s estate recently for breaching a business partnership. Kleiman estate argues that the two men collectively invented Bitcoin and mined 1 million Bitcoins when the network was first launched.

However, allegedly Wright transferred the total mined amount of Bitcoin reserves under his ownership after Dave Kleiman passed away. The lawsuit called for $170 billion in damages from Wright that accounts for punitive damages, intellectual property breach, and the $25 billion market value of Bitcoin.

Jury Rules in Favor of Wright

The Jury presiding over the case of Kleiman vs Wright has signalled that the self-proclaimed Nakamoto has not been found guilty of any of the charges mentioned above. However, after facing difficulties in reaching a verdict, it was concluded that Wright was found guilty on one count of misconduct by committing conversion.

Conversion is a legal transgression that involves the perpetrator transferring the ownership rights of someone else’s property for personal use. The jury has decided to impose a $100 million penalty on Wright. The Australian IT professor is happy with the verdict and claims that it is not a bat at all.

The Klein estate has expressed relief from the verdict of the jury that requires Wright to pay $100 million in damages. Klein lawyers claim that they are happy that their clients at the W&K Information Defense Research LLC are going to get compensation for the wrongful Bitcoin reserve loss to Wright. Wright has told the media that he is not going to appeal.

The crypto community is sceptical about how he is going to pay $100 million if he did not mine Bitcoin in the early years. Wright has claimed to have distanced himself from Bitcoin and became an advocate for its chain split project BCH in 2017. He eventually joined BSV or Bitcoin Satoshi Vision after rebelling against BCH. Following the $100 million penalty verdict, the price of BSV increased by 10% but was not able to recover from its 73% correction.