Craig Wright had a terrible, no good, very bad Monday.
The legal battle between Wright and the estate of his former business partner, David Kleiman, went terribly pear-shaped for Wright on Monday when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida awarded half of his multi-billion Bitcoin fortune to the Kleiman estate. The Block:
In 2018, David Kleiman’s estate sued Wright for over one million bitcoins and intellectual property related to the Bitcoin software. According to the suit, Wright and Kleiman mined these million bitcoins between 2009 and 2011, which were said to be stored in a trust called the “Tulip Trust.” Kleiman’s estate sued Wright for half of the fair market value of these coins, in addition to the rights to David Kleiman’s intellectual property.
The court found Wright, the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin, to have perjured himself by submitting falsified documents and awarded the Kleiman estate “with 50% of the alleged 1.1 million bitcoins David Kleiman mined with Wright between 2009 and 2011.” It also rewarded the estate with the intellectual property related to the Bitcoin software.
As CoinDesk notes however, the case isn’t over yet. While Wright cannot oppose the order, the judge’s order will have to be adopted by the District Judge to become final.
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