Craig Wright told to cough up a cool $5 billion by Florida court

28th August 2019

Written by OspreyFX News Team 

Craig Wright fined a whopping $5billion in Florida court ruling

Craig Wright is rarely not in the news these days. The creator of the Bitcoin offshoot, Bitcoin SV (Satoshi’s Vision) has now ended up in hot water once again with a Florida court ruling that Wright is to pay a staggering $5 billion to the estate of late programmer David Kleiman. Kleiman and Wright were supposedly partners when Bitcoin was invented and allegedly mined the cryptocurrency together for four years between 2009 and 2013 when Kleiman passed away.

Close to half a million Bitcoin claimed

But whilst the Kleiman estate is alleging that he was partner with Wright, the latter is strenuously denying that this was not the case. Wright also claims to be the mysterious Satoshi who invented Bitcoin but that claim has been rubbished several times. An important issue is the amount that Wright holds in Bitcoin is unknown. Several claims have been put forward that the Kleiman estate could vary from 400,000 to 500,000 Bitcoins or around $5 billion.

Vast amounts of Bitcoin inaccessible says Wright

In his defence, Wright said that he hasn’t got any access to the vast amounts of mined Bitcoin. He’s claimed that the private keys were divided and given to Kleiman who eventually distributed these through a blind trust. However, this did not impress Judge Bruce Reinhart who said that Wright made statements that were inconsistent and that he couldn’t be believed.

Crypto market blues?

This huge claim on Wright will undoubtedly have some effect on the cryptocurrency market as a whole which is something that Osprey FX customers should take note of. Strangely enough, BSV was slightly up over the past 24 hours although it has fallen by around 70% from its yearly high of $250 and is now trading at around $138. Legacy Bitcoin is still mired in the low $10,000 mark but as the news continues to filter through, there might be a movement probably into negative territory. Other cryptocurrencies remain at yearly low with Ripple the most significant loser where it is now back where it started around 2 years ago.