THE real identity of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto could be unmasked, unlocking the key to a $64 billion fortune.
Satoshi Nakamoto is generally believed to be a pseudonym and the true identity of the inventor the cryptocurrency remains shrouded in mystery.
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But whoever did invent Bitcoin is believed to have a stash of the cryptocurrency now worth around $64 billion, making them the world’s 19th richest person.
Now the family of a man who died in 2013 is suing his former business partner, alleging they were both Nakamoto and are entitled to half the fortune, the Wall Street Journal reports.
David Kleiman’s family have brought a case against Craig Wright, a 51-year-old Australian living in London, who has been claiming since 2016 that he invented Bitcoin.
The case will be heard in a Florida court, where the jury will be told the two worked on the cryptocurrency together and the family are entitled to half a million Bitcoin.
The Kleiman’s lawyer said Vel Freedman said: “We believe the evidence will show there was a partnership to create and mine over one million bitcoin.”
The lawsuit allege Wright asked for help in what would become that nine-page paper on which they collaborated on and then launched bitcoin together.
According to Tibor Nagy, a lawyer who has been observing the case, the trial will heard about how one pair were friends but one tried to claim the whole fortune.
“It is about two friends who had a partnership, and about how one of them tried to take everything for himself after the other died,” he said.
Wright’s defence will be that it has evidence he is the sole creator of Bitcoin and never included Kleiman.
“We believe the court will find there’s nothing to indicate or record that they were in a partnership,” said his lawyer Andrés Rivero.
Complicating the case is the widespread scepticism in the Bitcoin community that Wright is its inventor.
The risks of buying with cryptocurrencies
Investing and making a purchase in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is risky .
Their value is highly volatile and City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority has warned investors should be prepared to lose all their money.
Investing in cryptocurrencies is not a guaranteed way to make money.
You should also think carefully about making purchases with a cryptocurrency.
For example, Bitcoin has had wild price fluctuations in recent months and the price can change on an almost hourly basis.
The price of a Bitcoin was at $40,258 on January 9, according to Coindesk, but fell to $34,214 just three days later.
That’s a 15% drop.
These price swings are risky for a business as you could sell an item for a Bitcoin at one price and the value may drop soon after, leaving you with less money from a sale.
Similarly, the price of Bitcoin has soared by more than 21% since the start of this week so it can be hard for a shopper to get an accurate idea of the price of an item if its value changes on a daily basis.
In 2016 he provided technical “proof” to the BBC, The Economist and GQ, which consisted of a demonstration of the verification process used in the very first Bitcoin transaction.
But The Economist claimed “such demonstrations can be stage-managed” and reported Wright refused to make the proof public and to provide other assurances.
He then posted an apology on his blog stating that he no longer had the “courage” to continue the process of proving his identity.
Wright subsequently appeared in Netflix documentary Banking on Bitcoin and once again claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto in what he said would be his final filmed interview.
While there has been plenty of speculation about Nakamoto, there is one person who’s adamant he definitely isn’t the cryptocurrency pioneer.
Japanese-American man Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto said he had never even heard of Bitcoin.
Hedge fund manager Stefan Qin explains how he makes money on bitcoin whether it goes up or down
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