Judge in 'Satoshi Nakamoto trial' orders Craig Wright to pay US$43 million more in IP damages to the heirs of Bitcoin co-inventor
Back in December, the jury in the Kleiman v. Wright lawsuit - both alleged co-inventors of the Bitcoin protocol - awarded the heirs of the deceased David Kleiman US$100 million in intellectual property theft damages. At the time, the defendant Craig Wright who claims that he is the mysterious Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto celebrated the verdict by noting that "the jury has obviously found that I am because there would have been no award otherwise." "And I am," he continued, while his lawyer Andres Rivero added "we had crushed them" since the compensation awarded was a far cry from the plaintiff's demand for half of the first ever 1.1 million bitcoins that the collective mined while they allegedly created the Bitcoin protocol under the presumed Satoshi Nakamoto moniker.
Now, however, the judge in the so-called "Satoshi trial" has increased the IP damages that Craig Wright was ordered to pay by US$43 million more in interest, for a sum total of US$143 million owed to David Kleiman's brother who is the plaintiff on behalf of his estate and heirs. They argued that not only did Mr. Wright expropriate the intellectual property that their W&K joint venture with Mr. Kleiman worked on to invent the blockchain tech behind the Bitcoin protocol, but he also snagged the initial 1.1 million bitcoins they mined that are now worth about US$43 billion.
The jury, however, couldn't determine whether Mr. Wright has access to the pilot bitcoins hence confirm his claim that he is Satoshi, so it only awarded Dave Kleiman's estate the IP damages. This is why Craig Wright's lawyer again scoffed at the new charges and issued a statement saying that the new sum is still "but a fraction of the amount plaintiffs claimed."
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