A $10 billion lawsuit could bring down the crypto currency market

Professor Craig Wright, posing as Satoshi Nakamoto, is to hand over 410,000 Bitcoins to his partner’s family.

The Australian court has considered a claim against Craig Wright, a well-known crypto enthusiast who has been trying to convince everyone for several years that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. The lawsuit against the alleged Nakamoto was filed, in early 2018, by the brother of Dave Kleiman, Wright’s former partner.

Wright and Kleiman mined the crypto currency together in 2009-2013. When Kleiman died, Wright appropriated all the assets of their company, including the crypto currency. Thus, Craig Wright's current fortune can be worth at least $10 billion.

The court honoured the claim by Dave Kleiman's heirs and ordered Craig Wright to return them half of his crypto currency assets, which is about 410,000 Bitcoins with the value over $4 billion.

According to Wright, access to the wallets holding the Bitcoins mined together with Kleiman has long been lost. But apparently, the court did not believe him. In issuing a court ruling, the judge noted that he didn’t believe Wright had been honest. The defendant remembered in detail the facts that were good for his case, but he spoke evasively and even "belligerently" in other situations.

The transfer of Bitcoins, which appeared already in the early years of the network, could indirectly confirm that Craig Wright actually is Satoshi Nakamoto. But Wright has the opportunity to appeal the court's decision, and he will, in all likelihood, avail himself of the opportunity.

Most of the Bitcoins that appeared in the early days of the network belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. If the hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins, considered deadweight so far, enter the market, this could lead to a collapse in the exchange rate of not only Bitcoin, but all the other crypto currencies as well.