- The 15 Bitcoin developers being sued by Craig Wright have demanded a preliminary trial to assert Wright’s ownership of two Bitcoin addresses
- Wright claims that his Tulip Trading Ltd vehicle owns the 1Feex and 12ib7 addresses at the heart of the Pineapple Hack
- The developers want a judge to rule on this and kick it out if TTL is found to not be the owner
The 15 Bitcoin developers at the heart of what has become known as the Pineapple Hack case have asked the judge for a preliminary trial to determine whether the Bitcoin addresses at the heart of case were actually owned by the person suing them. Australian Craig Wright claims to have been the victim of Britain’s biggest heist in February 2020 when more than $1.1 billion worth of BTC, BCH and BSV coins were stolen from him, but the paucity of evidence concerning his ownership of the addresses in question have led to the developers insisting that this aspect be decided before any trial.
Wright’s Unlikely Tale
Wright claims that two and a half years ago a hacking gang knocked out the CCTV around his house, broke in and planted a network intrusion device behind his television, which they then used to wipe 37GB worth of cloud data from his system. This, Wright says, may or may not have led to the hackers transferring all the data across to their own systems first, and if so they they took with them keys to two Bitcoin addresses beginning 1Feex and 12ib7. Between them, these addresses contain more than 110,000 BTC, BCH and BSV tokens.
The coins themselves haven’t moved, and indeed Wright’s purported ownership of the coins in the addresses is backed up either by his own improbable story involving a Russian exchange and Liberty Reserve, with a fraudulent purchase order thrown into the mix. In actual fact, the coins in the 1Feex address were owned by MtGox before the exchange was hacked in 2011 and the coins sent over to that address in 2011.
Wright claimed in an August 2019 interview that the world would soon find out that coins could move through court orders, for example in the case of the theft of private keys, and just months later he was unlucky enough to have this exact scenario allegedly happen to him. However, the validity of the hack is questionable, with the police having shelved the investigation after never making any details public or even trying to solicit help in finding the gang through local news outlets.
TTL “Never Owned” the Coins
Wright sued the developers and related entitles in 2021, arguing that they held a fiduciary duty over the coins and they should give them back to him, but the developers yesterday filed a request for a mini-trial where Wright’s evidence over ownership of the coins should first be ruled on.
In a 35-page takedown of Wright’s multitude of ludicrous claims, the filing asserts that Wright’s vehicle Tulip Trading Ltd “never owned the Digital Assets and has commenced this claim fraudulently and in reliance on fabricated documents,” arguing that it should be thrown out if it is found to not be the legitimate owner.
If the case does go ahead, the defendants are also requiring that Wright stump up £1.25 million ($1.62 million) ahead of the trial as a security deposit to prove that he can pay their costs should he lose, something they initially requested in 2022. This is standard practice for cases where defence costs are likely to be high, but it puts Wright in a tricky position as he recently claimed to the judge in the Kleiman vs Wright case that he has no money and that all his assets are in trusts.
This was done to avoid paying the $143 million he owes W&K Info Defense after losing the case in December 2021, but he now faces the prospect of not being able to move ahead with the Pineapple Hack case unless he can lay his hands on the money.
