In the US state of Florida, there is a case that has been going on for some time and which at first glance seems rather ordinary and boring. The parties to the lawsuit are the family of a deceased man and his former partner, the purpose of which is to determine who will own the assets of the partnership that is dissolved due to death. But this seemingly mundane case could unravel one of the greatest mysteries of our time. The assets in the lawsuit are a 64 million bitcoin account with a present value of around $1 billion. The owner of the account is none other than the creator of Bitcoin, known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
The family that filed the lawsuit claims that the deceased and his former partner came together to create Bitcoin, so half of the Satoshi Nakamoto character is their deceased father. As a result, the family claims half of Nakamoto's assets.
For Bitcoin enthusiasts, there is only one piece of evidence that will definitively show the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto: the private key that controls the account where Nakamoto has stored 1 million Bitcoins. The person claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto must be able to transfer even 1 Bitcoin from this account in order to prove this claim.
Who Owns 1 Million Bitcoin Accounts?
We are talking about a huge wealth of 64.000 USD x 1 Million Bitcoins with today's value. A fortune of approximately 64 Billion US Dollars! The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto is one of the most curious topics about Bitcoin. Nakamoto first existed on October 31, 2008.
The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is one of the biggest mysteries in the financial world today. Is Nakamoto a single person or a group of several? And more importantly, why didn't this person or people touch a penny of this billion-dollar wealth? The answers to these questions form both the basis of the Florida lawsuit and the backdrop of the Bitcoin debate.
It has always been wondered who developed Bitcoin, which has become one of the most valuable currencies in the world in just 13 years, and for what reason. There has been a lot of speculation about this. A fairly ordinary case in the United States seems to reveal one of the greatest secrets of our time.
A 9-page text, sent to a group of cryptographers by a person using that name at the time, detailed an "electronic cash" system where people could exchange value without the need for a bank or other person. Within a few months, the Bitcoin network went live, and Nakamoto had accumulated 1 million Bitcoins in the first year.
According to Kleiman's family, Wright sought help from his partner in early 2008 to create the system that will ultimately be described in that 9-page text. The duo first drew the theoretical framework, and then together they brought Bitcoin to life.
Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto Pseudonym?
Today, Bitcoin has become a market worth trillions of dollars. While some governments are taking steps to regulate the markets of this cryptocurrency, some countries are announcing that they accept Bitcoin as their official currency. Some say that the technology running behind Bitcoin means rewriting the rules of the global financial system. However, there is still no answer to the questions about who created Bitcoin and why.
This being the case, the issue of who will manage one of the world's greatest personal fortunes becomes a huge issue. Therefore, very difficult days await the jury of the Florida case.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the plaintiff is the family of the late David Kleiman, and the defendant is 51-year-old Australian software developer Craig Wright, who lives in London.
Wright is a name that is not familiar to those who follow Bitcoin closely. It is difficult to say that this claim of Wright, who has been expressing that he is the creator of Bitcoin at every opportunity since 2016, is accepted by the Bitcoin community.
Kleiman's family, on the other hand, argues that the two partners are working together on the creation and mining of Bitcoin, so half a million Bitcoin should be left to them.
“We believe the evidence shows that the creation and mining of 1 million Bitcoins was the result of a partnership,” Vel Freedman, a lawyer for the Kleiman family, told the Wall Street Journal. The family is preparing to present evidence to suggest that Kleiman and Wright have worked together since the inception of Bitcoin.
Tibor Nagy, a lawyer following the case, also told the newspaper, "The essence of the case is two friends who are in partnership, and one of these friends takes everything for himself after the other dies."
The defense states that there is evidence to show that Wright single-handedly created Bitcoin and that Kleiman had no role in the process. "We believe the court will rule that there is no sign or record of any partnership," Wright's attorney, Andres Rivero, said in a statement.
How Crypto Technology Works
Bitcoin combines cryptography, cryptography, distributed computing and game theory. Thanks to Bitcoin, two people with an internet connection anywhere in the world can perform financial transactions in minutes without an intermediary.
Each of these transactions, which number more than 650 million, is kept in a public ledger called the "block chain".
There are two sets of lines to control the movement of the digital currency. One is a public key and the other is a private key. It is possible to think of the open key as a kind of IBAN number that anyone can send money to. The private key, on the other hand, is only owned by the person who controls that account, that is, the owner of Bitcoin.
Nakamoto Disappeared!
In the early days of Bitcoin, no one cared about Nakamoto's identity. At that time, Bitcoin had no tangible value, and its supporters were barely a handful. Nakamoto continued the development of Bitcoin for about two years. At that time, he was leaving comments on various message boards and writing to the developers.
He used two email addresses and had a registered website. However, in December 2010, Nakamoto suddenly disappeared, ending all correspondence.
The number of people in the world with the level of expertise who can create Bitcoin is quite limited. In recent years, allegations have been made about many of these people that they may be Nakamoto. While all of the people in question denied the allegations, no definitive evidence of Bitcoin's creation process emerged.
On the other hand, in 2011, Kleiman registered a company called W&K Info Defense Research in Florida, USA. Kleiman's family argues that the company was a partnership, but Wright later claimed 100 percent of the company. The defense states that there is no partnership.
Kleiman passed away on December 26, 2013.
A year later, Newsweek magazine wrote that a person named Dorian Nakamoto, who had the same surname as Satoshi, was the creator of Bitcoin. Dorian Nakamoto denied the allegation. A one-sentence confirmation message was also posted on a message board by an account known to be used by Satoshi Nakamoto. This message, "I am not Dorian Nakomoto," was the last known public correspondence of Satoshi Nakamoto.
In May 2016, Kleiman Wright declared himself the creator of Bitcoin. Having met with many of Bitcoin's early investors, Wright gave exclusive interviews to three media outlets, filled a website with articles on cryptography and Bitcoin that he wrote himself.
Three days later, backing down in the face of criticism, Wright withdrew his claim that he was the creator of Bitcoin. The moment he removed all the articles on his website, Wright published a four-paragraph apology instead. The message read, “I am broken. I don't have the courage. I can't,” he said. However, he later renewed his insistence that he was the creator of Bitcoin.
It is also highly doubtful whether Wright or Kleiman had the knowledge necessary to create Bitcoin. Arthur Van Pelt, one of the Bitcoin investors who criticized Wright most harshly, stated that “Wright deceived and defrauded people and played the trust game” and said, “There is no genuine, independent and reliable evidence of any kind.”
But Kleiman's computational expertise is also said to be extensive. Emin Gün Sirer, founder of Ava Labs, said that Kleiman may have created Bitcoin, but there is not enough information to be sure. “This is an open question,” Sirer said.
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