Court orders Craig Wright to pay about $165,800 in Kleiman legal fees
A U.S. court orders self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright to pay over $100,000 in legal fees to the estate of Dave Kleiman.
On March 16, 2020, Court orders Craig Wright to pay about $165,800 in Kleiman legal fees. A U.S. court orders self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright to pay over $100,000 in legal fees to the estate of Dave Kleiman.
Kleiman's estate, represented by his brother Ira, claimed that Dave and Wright had worked together on Bitcoin's creation and that Wright had fraudulently claimed sole ownership of Bitcoin holdings and related assets. The lawsuit was one element of a broader saga surrounding Wright's controversial claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Wright had made this assertion publicly in 2016, providing what he claimed was cryptographic proof of his identity, but the Bitcoin community overwhelmingly rejected his claim after his evidence was debunked as fraudulent or insufficient. Wright's behavior—including suing critics, making grandiose claims about Bitcoin's future, and attempting to use intellectual property law to establish ownership over Bitcoin's development—had made him a reviled figure within the Bitcoin community.