Was Craig Wright Behind the Mt. Gox Hack In 2014?

According to Samson Mow, Chief Strategy Officer of Blockstream, Craig Wright’s lawyers have been sending out letters regarding Craig Wright’s Tulip Trading Limited revealing that access to two of Wright’s Bitcoin addresses has been compromised.

This puzzling assertion comes amid a legal battle between Wright and the Kleiman estate, during which Wright has claimed that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, inventor of Bitcoin, but will not pay the Kleiman estate the 1.1 million Bitcoin which they feel they are entitled to.

Craig Wright Involved In Mt. Gox Hack?

The letter states that Wright’s Tulip Trading owns the Bitcoin in two addresses, known as “1Feex” and “12ib7” that contain 79,957 BTC and 31,000 BTC. On or around February 5, 2020, access to these addresses was apparently compromised during a hack of Wright’s computer network. Data from the encrypted file on the network and information on how to encrypt the file were both stolen and then deleted from the network.

The London based law firm SCA Ontier notified that the Bitcoin was to be recovered from these Addresses, and any movement in these addresses would constitute a “contravention” of Tulip’s ownership and rights.

Idiotic letter that #Faketoshi’s lawyers are sending around. 😂 pic.twitter.com/9oswhTUd5S

— Samson Mow (@Excellion) June 12, 2020

Also, any assistance or inaction by any party in connection with the movement of the funds from the two addresses would be a further “contravention” of Tulip’s ownership and rights. The letter ended with Wright’s lawyers re-asserting that Tulip owns the right to the name “Bitcoin” and the Bitcoin database.

This is Where The Controversy Starts

Lead Monero developer Riccardo Spagni pointed out that the “1Feex” address was where some of the stolen Mt. Gox funds were sent to, implying that Wright may have just admitted that he played a part in stealing around 80,000 BTC from Mt. Gox in 204.

Either Wright could admit to the involvement in stealing Bitcoin or retract his statement and say that he never owned the coins in the first place and is not really Satoshi, according to Spagni.

Just so we’re clear, Craig Wright has just openly admitted (via his lawyers) to be the guy that stole 80k BTC from Mtgox. The screenshots below show the court documents indicating the “1Feex” address is where the stolen Mtgox funds were sent. What do you have to say, @CalvinAyre? pic.twitter.com/Yh1esDar6J

— Riccardo Spagni (@fluffypony) June 12, 2020

Wright’s Previous Contradictions

This web of contradictions comes amidst more updates in the Craig Wright trial where, for example, he said in his legal deposition from March 16, 2020, that he had been using an iPhone as early as 2006 when iPhones had been released in June 2007.

Wright’s Ph.D. thesis and Doctor title were also called into question in May when many parts of his thesis were shown to be plagiarized.

However, if he chooses to reply to accusations around the Mt. Gox hack, his actions may have a sizeable impact on the BSV price and shape the Bitcoin narrative overall, especially since the Mt. Gox hack caused the Bitcoin price to nosedive nearly 50%.

Featured image courtesy of the Wall Street Journal