Topic: Craig Wright's Latest Escapade -- Give me the bitcoins I stole from Mt. Gox! - page 2. (Read 623 times)

Lord Justice Birss wrote:
"there is, it seems to me, a realistic argument along the following lines. The developers of a given network are a sufficiently well defined group to be capable of being subject to fiduciary duties. Viewed objectively the developers have undertaken a role which involves making discretionary decisions and exercising power for and on behalf of other people, in relation to property owned by those other people. That property has been entrusted into the care of the developers. The developers therefore are fiduciaries. The essence of that duty is single minded loyalty to the users of the bitcoin software. The content of the duties includes a duty not to act in their own self interest and also involves a duty to act in positive ways in certain circumstances. It may also, realistically, include a duty to act to introduce code so that an owner's bitcoin can be transferred to safety in the circumstances alleged by Tulip."

Lord Justice Popplewell wrote:
I agree

Lord Justice Lewison wrote:
I agree


This falls under property law, and ownership of property is recognized and enforced worldwide. Courts in one country will recognize ownership of property even if that property was acquired in a different country. Wright can reasonably expect US courts to recognize his ownership of those bitcoins if he legally acquired them in the UK as a consequence of a UK court ruling.

No, that is not what was said at all. They're saying it is worth discussing the idea that cryptocurrency developers should bear some sort of fiduciary responsibility to their investors/users. And what jurisdiction does this actually apply to even if the answer was "yes, they do"?


Never a great basis to hang one's hat on during a legal proceeding 

But at least you can recognize it was lie.

That would happen assuming that he won. He likes to sue people. If Coinbase says that they're not accepting his bitcoins, what do you think he'll do?


It doesn't matter what hasn't worked before. The court is allowing the case to proceed because three judges agreed that Wright has a significant chance of winning.


The courts are taking him seriously because he has lawyers and is preparing his cases carefully.


There have certainly been a lot of lies involved. Wright's whole story about getting hacked is obviously a lie. But it's a lie that allows him to bring this case.

If he wins, the Core devs are likely to be unable to act as devs for the version of bitcoin that doesn't include Wright's unsigned transaction.

He would sue them if they did that, claiming that they're violating their fiduciary duty to protect the value of his bitcoins.

It would need to be a new team.

Again, a totally unenforceable claim. This happening is based on several assumptions all manifesting in miraculous, odds-defying alignment.

This is just more of the weird, threat-based hopium manufactured by the Wright camp that has never actually worked. The dude has been exposed as a fraud countless times, owned six ways from Sunday by people who actually know what they're talking about for years.

Why would anybody continue to believe he has a shred of credibility at this point?

Any sort of pump or positive traction generated by Wright's antics was based on outright lies. I'm pretty certain BSV would have been better off ditching him years ago. They could have shaken their association with Faketoshi by now and been simply known as the Bitcoin that stuffs data in really big blocks.

To give weight to yet another legal technicality-based charade is nonsensical at this point. It defies all logic given Wright's terrible track record in the courts.

US courts will enforce foreign judgments if they satisfy the right conditions. The ruling in the UK is likely to be enforceable in the US.


Indeed, it hasn't happened, but if Wright wins, then it will have happened. Every government will become aware that bitcoins have been seized and bitcoins can be seized.


Businesses will accept Wright's version of bitcoin or he'll sue them and win.

I'm not so sure about that. First of all, what authority does a UK court have over 12 non-UK based developers?

You're approaching this from a viewpoint that includes several foregone conclusions, many of which I don't think will manifest the way you seem to be certain they will.

"Governments can seize bitcoins" is a giant stretch from what has actually transpired in this one particular court thus far.

Again, for this to be possible, miners and nodes need to use the forked client, and users need to transact on it. This is literally impossible to enforce, let alone getting the developers to go along with it in the first place.

A hugely wasteful endeavor of everybody's time and resources except for those desperately trying to keep the price of BSV from falling into oblivion. It sank to all-time lows just 3 months ago and is just hovering above them now. Per usual from the BSV camp, the whole ploy reeks of desperation.

Indeed. The Core devs have not argued that it's technically impossible to do. If they had done that, then Wright would have moved the BSV funds using a hard fork and a non-signed transaction to prove that it is possible.


Yes, but Wright is claiming that they have fiduciary duties to get the court to consider the question of whether bitcoins can be seized by coercing the Core devs to hard fork the code to accept a particular non-signed transaction.

The point is that courts and governments around the world don't yet know that they have this power. They think bitcoin can't be seized because everyone says it can't. But it can, by coercing the Core devs.

Wright is trying to get the courts and governments of the world to understand this. I'm sure he'd be very happy if he won the case, but even if he loses the case, he'll achieve his goal if he gets governments to understand that they can seize bitcoins.

The devs aren't going to defy a court order. They're not criminals or fugitives. They're law-abiding citizens in good standing and they really want to stay that way.

If the court rules that the devs must hard fork and include a non-signed transaction, then they'll do it.

Some of the users will use it and some will refuse and will keep using the previous version. The two competing versions would have different blockchains after the block where the fork happened, but transactions on one chain could be replayed on the other one, as long as the coins didn't come from Craig Wright's address.

If Wright never moves the funds that he received in the non-signed transaction, then every other user's balance will be identical on the two different chains. It wouldn't make a difference if you upgraded or not.

The person who would have the ability to make balances different on the two chains would be Craig Wright. He'd have all the bitcoins that are valid on one chain and invalid on the other. He could send some of those to any other bitcoin address, and cause a difference between that address's balances on the two chains.

That would be what would happen if the people who refuse to use the new version don't change their code to prevent transaction replays. They would be the ones who would need to fork. They'd make a new coin, probably called bitcoin classic.

Yet its been 2 years and the 1Feex BSV hasn't moved.


That's not what was said by the judge. Read his words for yourself.

The judge merely pondered over whether or not the developers owed bitcoin users "fiduciary duties." Even if this matter is settled in their favor, Tulip Trading would still have to prove the 1Feex coins belonged to them, which they cannot do. Even if they somehow could prove it (they can't), the judge would still need to rule that developers make the changes, and as all of them do not fall under jurisdiction of the court, there is no way to make them comply. Even if the devs did comply, there is no way to make users comply.

This isn't bad. This is irrelevant.


Nobody within bitcoin owes "the court" one second of their time. This is a giant nothingburger.

This has now happened. The court understands that the Core devs have the power to update the bitcoin code to make it treat a non-signed transaction as valid. The court also understands that it has the power to compel the Core devs to do that. This is bad.

Even if Wright loses this case, future courts can reference the judgment that was handed down on Friday. Criminal cases, sanctions, and even tax liabilities could result in the devs being dragged into court and possibly ordered to fork the blockchain in the future.

The strongest defense that I see right now is the argument that bitcoin owners and miners will rebel and refuse to use any new version that treats unsigned transactions as valid. The court needs to be convinced that this rebellion is very likely to occur, causing material financial harm to bitcoin users. The best ways that I can think of to present this to the court are:

* Explain that Craig Wright is a controversial figure who is widely hated and widely regarded as a scammer. A new version of the bitcoin software that violates the widely-loved principles of bitcoin for his benefit alone will not be regarded by the bitcoin community as a standard software update. It will not be possible to "slip it in" to the next software upgrade without users noticing.

* Explain that Ethereum users rebelled and created Ethereum Classic after an upgrade was released to remedy the DAO hack. Bitcoin users are even more committed to their principles than Ethereum users.

* Bitcoin has already forked because of segwit. Segwit was an extremely minor departure from the original bitcoin protocol. Hard-coding unsigned transactions is an extremely serious violation of the principles of bitcoin. It would be naive and negligent for the court to presume that no rebellion would occur in response to this violation.

* Bitcoin users would be asked to choose between a version of bitcoin in which their funds could not be confiscated by courts and a version in which they could. Bitcoin users do not hold courts in such high regard that they would willingly grant the courts the ability to seize their assets.

* The bitcoin community has a vision of a future in which bitcoin changes the balance of power in the world in favor of the people instead of the privileged and powerful. To grant Wright the relief he seeks, the court would need to rely on the cooperation of bitcoin users, who would be asked to sacrifice this vision. The court's ruling would be perceived by bitcoin users as an attempt to deprive future humanity of freedom and justice, and to perpetuate the rule of those who currently abuse power. It does not matter whether the court agrees with this perception. The court needs the cooperation of current bitcoin users to grant Wright the relief he seeks.

* To make these facts undeniable in the understanding of the court, the Core devs should invite relevant stakeholders including miners, holders, prominent figures and representatives of industry to submit Amicus Curiae briefs, explaining that these facts are true.

There are two plaintiffs in the case, Craig Wright, and someone named Cory Fields. A simple Google search brings this link, it’s Cory Fields’ profile, https://dci.mit.edu/cory-fields

It says that he’s a Bitcoin Core developer, “cory fields | bitcoin core developer”.

Can anyone confirm if he is. gmax? achow?

But why?  Faketoshi is always desperate to be perceived as someone who has been a significant part of Bitcoin's history.  But so far, all he's proven is that he's an absolute nobody and doesn't matter in the slightest.  Prior to emergence of all the forkcoins, there's no evidence to show he has contributed to any of Bitcoin's major events.  Why would Gox be any different to all the other lies he's told?  It's just one fabrication after another.  Never anything of substance to back it up.

He's fully aware that he's claiming to own stolen coins and frankly it makes me wonder why law enforcement isn't hounding him for "admitting" that.

It's almost as if a lawsuit about this petty threat is a higher priority to them than the stolen Mt Gox BTC and it's quite damning that exchanges and custodial services can pull exit scams and the worst they get is a scammer tag on bitcointalk (if they even have a presence there).

Why would the lawyers get sick of what he is doing, they are after the money and in my opinion, they loved that CSW is doing this kind of shenanigans because this means they get paid for their services. I don't think that he will win this because those bitcoin that was lost in his care should be payed if he were to in a strange way, won this case.

There is no need for deception. In the unlikely scenario in which Bitcoin Core developers are somehow coerced into publishing a version for CSW, then what happens if they attach this disclaimer:


The court can't stop them from saying that.

Well, maybe it was just Craig's lawyers getting sick of him and willing to screw him all over. Has any of Craig's moves been rational..? All he's ever done was only redeem his stupidity over and over.

Say his action succeeds and he legally gets to basically enforce a change in Bitcoin Core. Don't the rest of us just all fork off the chain, redeeming his coins worthless? Even if something happens to any of us, he forgets that we're in a decentralized environment where every attempt of manipulation and control can be forked off into a worthless garbage blockchain.

I always believed that both Mark Karpeles and Craig Wright had some involvement in the Mt Gox robbery. Back then, the total worth of coins that were stolen were estimated at around $450 million (BTC650,000). As per the current exchange rates, the value of the coins that were stolen back then has increased to around $30 billion. I feel bad for the users who lost their life savings in this robbery. I was fortunate not to store my coins in Mt Gox, but still lost some mBTC.

7 years have passed since this incident, and the victims are yet to receive any sort of compensation. Some BTC200,000 were recovered from the cold wallets, but the majority of this stash was sold off at very low prices by Nobuaki Kobayashi (Mt Gox bankruptcy trustee). Some of the people who lost their money has committed suicide. At least now, they should reimburse what is remaining in the cold wallets to the victims of the robbery.

OK. Exactly what I was saying a few posts earlier:

https://twitter.com/BtcDanny/status/1364729604863389696

Guy who lost Bitcoins at Mt Gox takes CSW's claims serious and issues legal notice to him over stolen funds in 1Feex address.
Certainly others will follow, just for the sake of shutting down the troll.

I'm afraid this is where it's not going to be possible to deceive the court. The court will understand immediately that the power to decide what software people run when they use Bitcoin Core is held by the Bitcoin Core devs.

If Bitcoin Core releases a new version of the software, it will be the official software from the official maintainers of Bitcoin Core, and that is what people will run when they're using bitcoin.

Indeed, he can make his own version of it, and nobody will use it. They will use the official releases from Bitcoin Core. The court will understand this. The court will understand that in order to give Wright the relief he claims, Bitcoin Core will need to be coerced to change their software. The court will understand that asking Wright to make a copy of the software and make the desired modifications to it is not an acceptable substitute for coercing Bitcoin Core to include it in the official release of the software.

I'm a miner, no way in hell would I be forced to do crap.  I'll shoot them all  with my legal machine guns before that happens.