MIAMI — On Monday, Craig Wright, wearing a cream-colored suit and purple tie, concluded his fourth day of testimony in the civil suit launched agai
MIAMI — On Monday, Craig Wright, wearing a cream-colored suit and purple tie, concluded his fourth day of testimony in the civil suit launched against him by the estate of his former best friend and alleged business partner, David Kleiman.
Ira Kleiman, David’s brother, and the attorneys representing the estate posit that David and Wright worked together to “invent” Bitcoin and mine a hoard of over 1.1 million coins, worth over $60 billion today. They also accuse Wright of stealing David’s share of the intellectual property rights and profits through a series of legal maneuvers and forgeries after David’s death in 2013.
In court, Wright said that he’d written the famous white paper alone and asked David Kleiman for help cleaning it up.
“If it had been a 60-page paper full of academic wankery, no one would read it.”
Plaintiffs say the two men were partners in a company called W&K Info Defense Research, LLC, which they used to mine and “develop” Bitcoin together. But Wright says he was never involved in W&K, and that it was a venture between his ex-wife Lynn Wright and David Kleiman.
Read more: Kleiman v. Wright: Bitcoin’s Trial of the Century Kicks Off in Miami
Nevertheless, after David’s death, Wright said he offered Ira Kleiman $12 million of his own money at one point to take on a director role at one of his companies. But Kleiman had refused the offer. Wright claimed Ira Kleiman would have been paid $30,000 per month for about 30 hours of work.
“That’s more than most people ever imagine, more than most people on this earth would dream about, and he turned it down,” Wright said. Instead of helping run a company, “[Ira] wanted to strip it, loot it, take it, basically eviscerate it so he could sit there drinking mai tais and not actually working,” Wright said.
Wright said in Monday’s testimony that he grew up with a single mother working three jobs, values hard work and won’t give handouts.
Freedman introduced documents purporting to show that Wright had “looted the company of all the intellectual property” to ice out Ira Kleiman.
“There was no looting,” Wright retorted. W&K owned, and still owns, software rights, which Ira Kleiman could exploit if he had the know-how, got investors and hired people, Wright said. “He doesn’t know what to do.”
Wright contrasted that with his own claims of technical and financial know-how.
“On a good day, I have written the equivalent of a master’s thesis,” Wright said. “I’m enrolled in 19 different universities; one of them is Harvard… I actually wrote three papers last night.”
Freedman tried to show Wright contradicting himself. At one point he asked whether Dave Kleiman had mined bitcoin in 2009. On the stand, Wright said no, because Dave was in the hospital at that time. Freedman showed a Slack message in which Wright said Dave had mined it. At every such turn, Wright attempted to explain away discrepancies, suggesting that Kleiman’s legal team was misunderstanding or intentionally distorting the context.
Casting doubt
Monday’s testimony capped Wright’s appearance on the stand, which began last week. Throughout it, Freedman focused his attack on Wright’s alleged history of theft, forgery and deceit.
For example, on November 9, through a series of emails between Wright and others, including Ira Kleiman and Wright’s associates, Freedman attempted to paint a picture of Wright and David Kleiman’s history of partnership, and Wright’s subsequent scramble to sweep it under the rug after David’s death, ostensibly because he realized he could keep Satoshi’s crown – and what the plaintiffs are calling “Satoshi’s hoard” of bitcoins – for himself.
Wright, who is known for his combative nature, was unyielding on the stand. Despite being presented with piece after piece of evidence that contradicted his explanation of events, Wright attempted to explain them away with claims that he had been hacked, that he had been misunderstood (which the defense has blamed on Wright’s autism), or that he’d simply been exaggerating David Kleiman’s role in the “creation” of bitcoin to give his dead friend a “legacy.”
Read more: In Craig Wright Trial, Plaintiffs Lay Out Pattern of Fraud, Deceit and Hubris
Though Wright has repeatedly failed to prove that he controls the bitcoins associated with Satoshi Nakamoto – and several experts have cast doubt on the existence of some of the bitcoins in question entirely – Wright’s notoriety means the case is being watched closely by many in the crypto community.
What does a partnership entail?
Importantly, it is the alleged partnership between David Kleiman and Wright – not the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto – that is at the heart of this civil trial.
Last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs showed the jury dozens of emails between Wright and Ira Kleiman in 2014 where Wright refers to David as his business partner, as well as messages between Wright and other…
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