Bitcoin and MtGox related research
In my previous post I described how I recreated the Bitcoin whitepaper as an exercise and an experiment to help contextualize and properly interpret potential claims by fraudsters. Specifically, since the whitepaper can be manually reverse-engineered from the PDF to a matching OpenOffice source document, possession of such source documents is not proof of being or having any relation to Satoshi…
If you're not familiar with Craig Wright, the notorious Australian who for many years has claimed to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto (a claim which has been widely and thoroughly debunked and discredited), first of all: congratulations. Consider skipping this article and happily moving on with your life. If you're still here, you probably also know that a recurring part of Wright's claims is…
As a follow-up to the previous article about Craig Wright's supposed key signings, last year I produced a short proof-of-concept video showing a similar seemingly legitimate key signing with Satoshi's genesis block key. It was fake of course, which most people immediately understood, but it might be informative to go through exactly how it was faked, so as to highlight the kinds of tricks used and…
Sometimes we're not comfortable drawing conclusions until all the dots have been sufficiently connected. Let's see if we can do that for one of the more annoying open "mysteries" surrounding Craig Wright: how did he pull off the private key signings? This article is sort of a spiritual companion piece to MyLegacyKit's comprehensive write-up of the timeline of the Wright key signings. While…
As there is a lot of confusion surrounding how the MtGox civil rehabilitation distribution will happen, here is an attempt to share my understanding of things, and an interactive calculator for estimating your possible payouts. ▼ Skip straight to the calculator ▼ Warning: This unofficial guide is based on a best-effort understanding of the process and estimates of the total assets and liabilities…
The MtGox civil rehabilitation trustee recently submitted a draft rehabilitation plan for distributing the assets of MtGox. The plan is not final and is currently being reviewed by the Japanese court, following which it will also need to be voted on by all creditors, and after that the practical matters of registering for payouts needs to happen, so this does not mean payouts are imminent or that…
I've recently been repeatedly asked about the theft of 80,000 BTC from MtGox in early 2011, as initially reported in a 2016 The Daily Beast article , and specifically how it relates to the address 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF . Rather than address every question individually, I will briefly summarize what's known about this in a blog post. Background For a quick refresher course on the…
With a decisive ruling by Judge Reinhart during the August 26 hearing into contempt of court by Craig Wright in the lawsuit brought by Dave Kleiman's estate, the case is more or less over after the judge imposed significant sanctions against Wright. Let's dig into what went down during this hearing. Background If you need to catch up on what this trial is about, check out the three previous…
It's getting hard to keep up with all the developments around Craig Wright, though thankfully more and more people are investigating and reporting on Twitter and elsewhere, freeing up just enough time for a few deep dives. Let's dig into the August 5 evidentiary hearing in the Kleiman v Wright lawsuit in Florida, with testimony from Steve Shadders, CTO of nChain, and Matthew Edman, expert witness…
There has been much reporting on the recent June 28th hearing in the case of Ira Kleiman v. Craig Wright, where the latter testified in person for the first time. Several reporters attended the hearing and relayed baffling events, but those of us who have been following the case were anxious to get a direct look at exactly how things played out. With the court transcript and exhibits in hand,…
As part of the ongoing lawsuit against Craig Wright by the relatives of Dave Kleiman and in response to a court order to reveal details of Wright's supposed bitcoin holdings (including a long hinted-at blind trust), a filing about Wright's supposed bitcoin holdings was recently unsealed. While the bitcoin addresses contained within are redacted, it turns out they're not hard to guess. Background…
Recently the MtGox civil rehabilitation trustee, Nobuaki Kobayashi, announced a six month delay in proceedings due to disapproved claims still being disputed. The trustee doesn't refer to it directly, but the elephant in the room causing this delay is Peter Vessenes' CoinLab, who after a failed partnership attempt with MtGox in 2012/2013 is now demanding an outrageous $16B USD from the MtGox civil…
Today some news landed about a $10B lawsuit against Craig Wright (the Australian man who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin), and it is an interesting read, but unfortunately for anyone involved, its claims have little basis in reality. The lawsuit purports that Wright fraudulently acquired large number of bitcoins owned by Dave Kleiman through forging various…
Earlier today news broke of an arrest in Greece of a Russian national suspected of running a large-scale money laundering operation focused on Bitcoin. The man has since been publicly identified as Alexander Vinnik, 38, and over $4 billion USD is said to have been trafficked through the operation since 2011. We won't beat around the bush with it: Vinnik is our chief suspect for involvement in the…
July 11 was the first day of proceedings for the anticipated trial of Mark Karpelès, CEO of the bankrupt MtGox bitcoin exchange. Karpelès was charged with creation and manipulation of private electronic records, as well as embezzlement of customer funds, or embezzlement of company funds, or breach of trust, in that order. I was present in the courtroom for the entire first day, and I expect there…
We received a lot of positive feedback on our release of our preliminary investigation into the Willy bot, even though it was already quite old (written circa August 2014). We also said we hoped to release more of our information over time, even though we have to take some care doing so. But while we have good relations to responsibly acquire and exchange information and share efforts, and…
WizSec has been investigating the MtGox crash since soon after it occurred, making us probably the longest running non-official investigation. In this time, as we slowly discover more things, it has become more and more important to be careful in what we disclose, both in order not to jeopardize other investigations and also not to needlessly get any of our sources into trouble. In line with our…