Dr. Craig S. Wright, Andres Rivero, and Amanda McGovern—his lawyers in the Kleiman v Wright case—have given the world their insight on the verdict from the Satoshi trial in a recent interview.
“Very simply put, the court has determined that [there was] no partnership. I’m incredibly relieved, it’s been a long time here and I’m looking forward to going home,” said Dr. Wright to begin the interview.
The Kleiman v Wright trial began on November 1 and came to a conclusion when the verdict was delivered on December 6. The jury was tasked to answer the following two questions:
Did Dr. Craig S. Wright and Dave Kleiman have a partnership in which they mined 1.1 million bitcoins together? And did Dr. Wright fraudulently transfer assets belonging to Dave Kleiman to himself?
“It was a very difficult case,” said Rivero, “beating a fraud allegation is absolutely critical. The fact that this jury found that when Craig Wright testified, there was no partnership, that he was telling the truth, the fact that the plaintiffs were claiming 600 billion dollars, and obviously this jury needed to compromise and end up reaching what is a symbolic amount just to get it over with on 1 out of 14 counts, all of that is really significant.”
There were a total of 7 counts on the verdict sheet that revolved around the two main questions being asked in the trial. Ultimately, the jury decided that Dr. Wright did not commit 6 out of 7 of those charges, with the exception being a conversion charge, which results in Dr. Wright having to pay W&K Info Defense Research LLC $100 million.
“In terms of whether we will appeal or not, there are arguments both ways, we’ll have to consult with Craig Wright and make a decision, it is a total win so that would be an argument not to appeal, but there are reasons to do so, so we’ll look at it,” said Rivero.
Is Craig Wright Satoshi Nakamoto?
Going into this trial, it was implied that only Satoshi Nakamoto could have mined the 1.1 million bitcoins that the plaintiffs alleged that Dr. Wright and Dave Kleiman mined together. Many people viewed the verdict as an answer to the question: was Satoshi Nakamoto a single person or a group people?
“I think first and foremost, the fact that Dr. Wright is now recognized as 100% Satoshi Nakamoto is the number one victory in this case,” said McGovern.
Throughout the trial, evidence was introduced into the court that either proved or implied that Dr. Wright had what many people call “the Satoshi coins” and that Dr. Wright was the owner of many of the addresses in which Satoshi stored bitcoin. But the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto was a very small part of the trial. What eclipsed that mystery was the claims that the plaintiffs were trying to accuse Dr. Wright of.
“More importantly than anything, it’s the fact that Dr. Wright was sued for fraud, he was sued for punitive damages, he was sued for civil theft, and the jury rightly found that none of that was so,” said McGovern.
What’s next for Dr. Craig Wright?
“We are going to start getting everything aligned and back in order. We are going to bring law back into digital cash and make sure people understand that it’s not about cryptocurrency, it’s not about gambling on price go up and manipulated markets, it’s about a system that is a commodity information exchange that has value globally because people can send and receive micro-payments,” said Dr. Wright.
“So I am going to bring back the idea of digital cash, not cryptocurrency, digital cash. I am going to allow people to send fractions of a cent, and once we get it scaled properly, a thousandth of a cent will be a valid transaction people can send…I invented bitcoin, not to make another money laundering, drug sale type system, I did it to be different, I did it to have micropayments, basically, a low-cost digital cash system, which was always the holy grail of the industry.”
Check out all of the CoinGeek special reports on the Kleiman v Wright YouTube playlist.
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