Craig Wright Trial Over a Fortune in Bitcoin Moved to 2021
Wright and the Kleiman estate will now put their arguments before a jury in January.
Sep 4, 2020 at 12:29 p.m. UTCUpdated Sep 14, 2021 at 9:52 a.m. UTC
:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/DJBGXDZJFFFQ5LM3AWYVB22DQQ.jpg)
/arc-photo-coindesk/arc2-prod/public/LXF2COBSKBCNHNRE3WTK2BZ7GE.png)
The trial of nChain Chief Scientist Craig Wright over his alleged billions in bitcoin has been moved to Jan. 4, 2021.
- In an order signed Thursday, Judge Beth Bloom at the District Court in the Southern District of Florida granted the joint motion from Wright and plaintiff Ira Kleiman to move the trial from the previous date of Oct. 13.
- Judge Bloom further extended some pre-trial deadlines to mid- and late December.
- The case was brought by Kleiman on behalf of the estate of his late brother David, who had worked with Wright in the early days of bitcoin.
- Ira is suing Wright for half of his alleged fortune of 1.1 million bitcoin (worth over $11 billion) he claims the two mined together, as well as intellectual property.
- A jury trial was ordered in June after an attempt by Kleiman to sanction Wright over his claimed misbehavior in court was denied.
- Judge Bloom said at the time she was concerned by the facts of the allegations, but ruled the matter was best left “for a jury to make as fact finder at trial.”
- She took into account that Wright had provided an expert witness to testify that he had been diagnosed with autism to explain his erratic testimony.
- Wright has proclaimed himself as the inventor of bitcoin, known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
- However, many in the cryptocurrency space dispute the claim, which has not been backed by convincing evidence, such as moving bitcoin thought to have been mined by Satoshi.
:format(webp)/downloads.coindesk.com/arc/failsafe/user/1x1.png)