Ex-Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles Says Craig Wright Is “Either a Thief or a Fraud”
Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles Calls Craig Wright “Either a Thief or a Fraud”
Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles states that the 80,000 Bitcoin (BTC) which Craig Wright lays claim to was stolen from the exchange in March 2011. Cryptocurrency experts agree with Karpeles.
Bitcoins were stolen
Karpeles confirmed that the Bitcoins stored at 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF were stolen from Mt. Gox:
“I confirm, this was confirmed in 2011 and records are also part of court documents available publicly.”
Also, speaking about Dr. Wright’s motivation in this turn of events in the Tulip Trust story, Karpeles suggested that nChain’s chief scientist is just attempting to provide some “evidence” of his status:
“To be quite honest, I think Wright is just trying to use this address as ‘evidence’ he is an early Bitcoin user with tons of BTC, and finds himself in a difficult situation where he is either a thief (if he keeps his claims up) or a fraud (if he admits being wrong)”.
The court accepted the Skype transcript
In the meantime, Dr. Wright is doubting the validity of evidence that these Bitcoins were ever stolen from Mt. Gox:
“The only evidence of the allegation regarding the origin of 1Feex Bitcoin of which I am aware is a purported Skype chat between Mark Karpeles and Jed McCaleb, but that document is only a text file rather than a validated Skype log. No other evidence or any credible evidence, such as internal / accounting records from Mt Gox, has been put forward.”
Notably, the Skype transcript was accepted by the court and the litigating parties have not questioned its authenticity.
Evidence contradicts Dr. Wright
Dr. Wright states that he made an arrangement to buy these Bitcoins in late February 2011, finalizing the transaction on March 1 of the same year:
“I agreed to purchase the bitcoin in the 1Feex address in late February 2011 and it was transferred into that address on 1 March that year. The full amount of the Bitcoin, which is now owned by Tulip Trading Limited, remains in that address today.”
He did not clarify if the transaction happened on Mt. Gox.
Kim Nilsson, a cybersecurity expert whose team spent months investigating a series of hacks which led to the eventual demise of Mt. Gox, completely declined Dr. Wright’s claims:
“The strongest independent proof I can bring is that the transaction that sent the 80k BTC to that address was entirely funded by Mt. Gox addresses, and that the MtGox wallet at the time got completely emptied by this transaction, which is absolutely not normal behavior and not compatible with Wright’s claims of just buying coins from some third party. (And who is this third party then?).”
It is worth noting that Mt. Gox’s order books were leaked and the leaked documents did not mention a transaction for this amount.
The most stupid thief ever?
The letter which was sent by Dr. Wright’s lawyers to Bitcoin Core developer Wladimir van der Laan (who is not funded by Blockstream) and Blockstream, argues that the former lost access to the Bitcoin addresses as a result of a February 5 2020 hack. Interestingly, the alleged thief has not moved any of the stolen Bitcoins. Either we are dealing with the world’s dumbest thief or Dr. Wright just keeps on webbing his web.
Sergio Demian Lerner, a well-known Bitcoin researcher, agrees that it makes no sense for a thief not to move the loot: “Yes, I agree it makes no sense”. However, Nilson supposed that this is just one more case of Dr. Wright trying to keep control over the story:
“Far from being some obscure unknown address, plenty of people have known about this address and the theft behind it for years. Wright has presented mere assertions without evidence, yet is acting like the burden of proof is now on everyone else to sufficiently disprove him, setting arbitrary standards for what sort of evidence he will accept. Wright always tries to change the rules rather than concede anything, but no amount of obfuscation or bluster will change the facts, and this is a wildly implausible story he’s pitching with plenty of evidence against it and nothing supporting it.”
The legal exercise puts an additional nail into the coffin of Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto. It is difficult to imagine that Satoshi Nakamoto would even consider using legal means to get access to some lost or stolen Bitcoins. Since the whole ethos of the cypherpunk towards electronic cash was to create such currency that would be orthogonal to the established goverment institutions.
Wladimir van der Laan said that he has no intentions of replying to the letter:
“I’m not at least. No idea about Blockstream, I have nothing to do with them.”
