Bitcoin Offshoot Doubles After Supposed Creator Finds Bitcoins
Bitcoin Offshoot Doubles After Supposed Creator Wins Legal Delay
(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin SV more than doubled in value, continuing its surge as the self-proclaimed inventor of the digital currency told a court that he was able to provide a list of his holdings as ordered by a judge.
Craig Wright said that “a third party has provided the necessary information and key slice to unlock” a roster of his Bitcoin holdings, according to a filing Tuesday with the U.S. District Court of Southern District of Florida. The amount of the holdings hasn’t been specified, but could be in the billions of U.S. dollars.
A judge in West Palm Beach, Florida, had ruled on Jan. 10 that Wright, who claims he created Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, can postpone a deposition that was scheduled for Tuesday, and receive additional time to produce information about his holdings. The case could shed light on whether Wright actually owns a huge swath of the original coin.
If his identity as Nakamoto is confirmed by the case, that could give a boost to Bitcoin SV, a rival effort that Wright has been supporting for months, after claiming that the original Bitcoin didn’t pan out as he’d hoped.
Judge Beth Bloom also reversed some sanctions imposed on Wright by another judge.
The estate of former business partner Dave Kleiman is suing Wright for Bitcoins worth billions. The outcome of the case could potentially affect markets for Bitcoin and its offshoots, like Bitcoin SV.
In August, a judge ruled that Wright submitted false documents and lied in the legal dispute with the Kleiman estate, ordering him to surrender more than $4 billion of the cryptocurrency.
While many people in the cryptocurrency community doubt Wright’s claims, more than $5 billion in Bitcoin SV, or Satoshi’s Vision, traded over the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.com. The coin, trading at about $330, is the now the fifth largest by market value, the data tracker said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Rita Nazareth
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