> seize millions of USD worth of assets you don't own, but that's the gist of it yes
Technically true, but he's looking for $4 b-b-billion.
Some thoughts about this that interest me:
- Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds. They never should have done that because now anybody can argue "you did it for them, why not me?" And this time it's being argued in the legal domain instead of just on heated GitHub comments. Judges aren't known for understanding the details of blockchains and can probably swing either way on this, especially if you jurisdiction shop.
- The "assets you don't own" part. He can't prove he had the keys, or lost the keys. But he just needs to present a compelling argument, not have an argument beyond a shadow of a doubt. The fact that the real Satoshi is unlikely to appear to defend themself makes it easier for Wright to argue Wright had the keys at some point, even if he wasn't the first or last owner.
- Combining these points: If you have established you will change the blockchain through a compelling argument; and if _nobody_ presents the keys; but if you have the best compelling argument _without_ the keys, then the coins probably belong to you.
- The big problems that lead to this situation were opening the Pandora's box of blockchain forks; & the tying of physical identities to wallets through KYC (which was the death of BTC.)
> Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds.
The DAO fork is a good example, but the Bitcoin Cash fork is not a good example as the developers did nothing with any of the funds. That was just a normal fork that created a new cryptocurrency.
Maybe you're thinking of Craig Wright's own Bictoin fork, Bitcoin SV?
> If you have established you will change the blockchain through a compelling, non-technical argument; and if _nobody_ presents the keys; but if you have the best compelling argument, they _probably_ belong to you.
I get that it's what he's going for, but one of the keys he has claimed was his has already signed a message claiming Wright is a fraud:
> Things like the Bitcoin Cash fork & DAO fork arguably set the precedent that the developers control the funds.
Perhaps it made people more aware of that fact, but this was always true. Bitcoin has never been "trustless"; that's always been a mirage. (Not even the original Bitcoin whitepaper makes that claim, and it claims some pretty dubious things!)
Pfft. Its existence solely and only persists through the mass of nodes run by people who utilize the network. The only control that developers exert is over their own actions and willingness to write code. The overall community consensus to run that code is cooperative, *not* coercive.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
(edit) And you clearly never read the whitepaper: "What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party."
> The overall community consensus to run that code is cooperative, *not* coercive.
We don't disagree. Many people act like the consensus algorithm is somehow magically obviating the need for a consensus among humans. One must inherently trust that, if one is to use something like Bitcoin.
Functionally, as long as the consensus is to install the latest version of Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin Core's maintainers control Bitcoin.
The whitepaper claims that Bitcoin removes the need for a trusted third-party to transactions. If you consider mining pools to be "a party", that claim isn't strictly true: on several occasions, one mining pool has held 51% hash power (e.g. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group... is a notable example; before that, pools normally kept their hashing power below 30% voluntarily), so in reality, you're trusting all sufficiently-wealthy parties not to do that. However, the whitepaper doesn't make the widely-believed stronger claim about magical trustlessness.
No, that's incorrect. There is no fundamental trust; you were describing control in a coercive sense among the developers by directly asserting that developers have specific control over the funds in the system.
This is obviously not true, has never been true, and I have no trouble predicting that it will never be true.
What I took exception to was the fact that you were asserting developers themselves control funds, and that they specifically were trusted parties. Overall, Bitcoin depends on no trusted third parties, since in your example, mining pools with 50% hashrate do not arbitrarily control funds either.
And no, writing software does not imply control over the network, since there were plenty of other node implementations which existed (and exist) and which users choose to run for X or Y reasons. Writing software out of consensus which arbitrarily controls funds, in your assertion and in consistency with your string of logic (context across multiple messages,) "devs writing code" is not what consensus is. Even the github repository where Bitcoin is currently published is not current consensus. Current consensus is the current behaviour of the network right now. That is current consensus.
The DAO fork never would have hit production if users had not been chosen to run it. The software update even had a switch people had to set, choosing whether to run the fork or not.
The Parity project later requested a rescue attempt for themselves and their wallet users, and the community strongly resisted the idea. Parity was run by a cofounder of Ethereum, and the issue was way more clear than someone claiming without proof that they'd lost their keys; if Parity couldn't get a rescue done, it's not likely to happen again for anyone else.
Certainly it'd be difficult to get an international community to bend to the demands of a court in one jurisdiction. Even if they forced the issue in that one jurisdiction, it'd just be a fork, probably with little value.
That is a lie—in terms of funds being controlled specifically absent owner signatures, by the developers, how did even Bitcoin Cash set such a precedent?
In fact, there are specific counter-examples with Jeff Garzik's godmode patches which were so roundly denied and rejected that they were DOA.
Ethereum is irrelevant because of how much total premine it was and how they misrepresented it, and misrepresented the involvement of famous cryptographers like Ralph Merkle.
None of your comments about key ownership have any basis in reality or even logic, because of the direct counter-evidence of key ownership for the keys he is claiming ownership of.
So, you also have no idea what you're talking about.
It wasn't a lie. What's the direct counter-evidence for the key ownership? I was not aware of that.
I saw someone comment above that one of the keys in question signed a message saying that they were not Wright, which is a good example for that particular key.
My comment you replied to specifically mentioned a scenario where the key owner did not defend themself. So we are talking about different scenarios.
In any case, I wasn't lying when I posted what I referred to as my thoughts, & certainly do know what I'm talking about. Thanks for the correction.
It is a lie, since Bitcoin Cash never moved funds that weren't signed by their owners. You're going to have to prove that, now, or admit you overspoke.
The direct counter-evidence against Craig's claimed key ownership are the facts that many of his claimed addresses signed that he was a fraud, that Wizsec showed that the 1feex address was actually stolen MtGox funds (and nothing to with Craig at all,) the court records of Klein v. Wright showing he completely made up the list of claimed addresses by instructing Shadders (a shoddy programmer from nChain) to construct the list entirely algorithmically from broken precepts.
So no, it wasn't just "one" key. It was dozens.
(Lots of addresses that Craig claimed were his, signing that Wright is a fraud):
https://craigwright.lol/
You are doing a slippery thing here by claiming that your directly-falsifiable statement about Bitcoin Cash being a "precedent" where "developers control the funds"—while now in the above statement claiming that this was actually in regards to Satoshi likely not stepping up to defend his own key ownership—is somehow related.
You clearly don't know what you're talking about, or else you could show me even a single instance where Bitcoin Cash moved funds absent its owner's key signature—which is entirely what this entire thing is about, namely a court case where Wright is suing to attempt to force a backdoor into Bitcoin which would move funds specifically to his possession without a key owner's signature (or a coinbase pay.)
Finally: reasons why you don't have any idea what you're talking about, itemized:
1) You didn't know that Bitcoin Cash never moved funds without a coinbase payout or a key owner's signature but asserted it did.
2) You didn't know about the direct evidence of Craig's claimed keys being owned by other people.
3) You don't know how hard forks work because you think that hard forks can happen gradually and that pressure from minor buy-in can push it to adoption.
Aside from the DAO (which is irrelevant because Ethereum is a scam) you haven't had a very good batting average in general, and for Bitcoin, it's atrocious.
TL;DR: yes, but if outlandishness crosses over to deceit, you risk penalties.
Anyone can file a lawsuit if they pay the filing fees.
If they hire a lawyer, the lawyer must uphold the ethical standards of the bar, which carry suspension/disbarment penalties. Those standards generally include a good-faith belief in the legal merits of your client's case, adherence to all laws and court procedures, speaking up when you believe a law is about to be broken, etc.
The client (you) will eventually be called as a witness, and you can go to jail if you lie on the stand or otherwise present false evidence. Unfortunately, the penalties seem to happen a lot less often than the perjury. That's partly because perjury is a criminal offense, carrying a higher burden of proof than a civil claim.
Wright's been civilly found to commit perjury-- but they just hit him with a fine and he keeps going. He was hit with a criminal contempt charge two decades ago for perjury and forgery in court, sentenced to 30 days in jail but he got it reduced to community service. But even if it hadn't been-- so what? He'd probably ultimately benefit from it by spinning it into a story about that time when he went to jail in for standing up for his beliefs in the face of a corrupt judge or whatever.
The main consequence of perjury in civil court is that it tends to cause you to lose. But when you're bringing cases with no serious prospect of success for collateral purposes... it doesn't really matter if you lose, and if lying is the only way you might win... The other consequences seem calibrated for otherwise upstanding people that actually care about the consequences of their actions, not for grifters using the courts as a weapon.