LONDON : Self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright's lawsuit against bitcoin network developers to try to recover billions of dollars can continue to trial, a London court said on Friday.
Australian computer scientist Wright is suing 15 developers in an effort to retrieve around 111,000 bitcoin – currently worth about $2.5 billion – after he lost the encrypted keys to access them when his home computer network was allegedly hacked. Tulip’s case was thrown out last year, but the Court of Appeal ruled on Friday that developers arguably do owe duties to owners, which should be determined at a full trial.
Wright says he wrote the bitcoin white paper which first outlined the technology behind the digital assets under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, however the claim is hotly disputed.His lawyer, Felicity Potter, said the decision was “a step towards a properly regulated and well-governed digital asset ecosystem which should be welcomed by potential and current coin-holders alike”.