Justice Colin Bires of the London Court of Appeal Friday, February 3, Government Craig Wright’s lawsuit against 14 bitcoin developers is about to go to trial.
Craig Wright: Free My Bitcoin
Craig Wright, through Tulip Trading, claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of bitcoin. He is suing 14 developers to recover 111,000 BTC.
Haul is estimated to be worth about $2.5 billion at the spot rate. However, this figure could be much higher if BTC continues to rally.
In one lawsuit, Craig stated that he lost the private keys to his wallet after his home computer was hacked. Hence, he cannot recover the coins. Nevertheless, through his company, Tulip Trading, Craig claims that developers must intervene by introducing code changes to gain access.
Unlike ordinary cash transfers, bitcoin transactions are irreversible once confirmed by special computers called “miners”. Miners are tasked with verifying transactions.
Because there is no third party in the system and all transactions are self-verified, the sender must sign off on each transfer, verifying that they are the owner of the wallet.
Behind each signature in the wallet is a private key that verifies ownership. Like in Craig’s case, it is almost impossible to recover assets without the private key.
Regardless of the amount, coins that cannot prove a private key are considered lost. As it stands, Craig Wright’s 111,000 BTC is technically “lost” in bitcoin digital ether.
opening pandora’s box
This situation will only change if the developers “roll back” the bitcoin network. For this to happen, miners and interested parties must reach a consensus.
In view of the decentralized nature of bitcoin, any attempt or request to “rollback” will be immediately rejected.
In 2019, Binance was chopped off 7,000 for BTC. Its CEO Changpeng Zhao touted the idea of a bitcoin rollback to recover the coins. It was rejected.
Although the case was dismissed last year, the Court of Appeal has ruled in favor of the plaintiff.
In short, it states that the code authors now owe the coin owners duties, which in this case are BTC holders including Craig Wright and Tulip Trading.
This puts pressure on the developers of a public network and may discourage future participation.
Most of the open-source code authors behind platforms like bitcoin, ethereum and others were contributors, adding code to make the protocols better, stronger and faster.
Whether or not this duty holds and open source network developers are responsible for token holders will be determined upon full trial.
Credit : www.newsbtc.com