Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who claims to be the creator of Bitcoin, may be in control of an address that contains stolen BTC from the infamous Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, which was hacked back in 2011.
In a viral document sent to blockchain development firm Blockstream, Wright’s lawyers allege that Wright owns the wallet address, known as 1Feex, that stores 79,957 BTC worth over $756 million.
Former Mt. Gox chief executive Mark Karpelès says that 1Feex received the stolen BTC from the crypto exchange hack nine years ago.
“The 1Feex address contains ~80k BTC stolen from MtGox in March 2011. Craig Wright is claiming to have been in control of this address until recently, admitting legal liability for damages and interest?”
Former Monero lead maintainer Riccardo Spagni traced the destination wallet of the stolen BTC and confirmed that the 1Feex address contains the looted BTC from Mt. Gox.
Wright’s lawyers claim that on February 5, 2020, Wright lost control of 1Feex along with another address after his computer network was hacked. They sent the letter to Blockstream to urge the Bitcoin development firm to do something about the hack.
“You have duties in relation to transactions on that blockchain in circumstances where you have notice of the interests involved, including in particular avoiding illegitimate transactions being entered on the blockchain.”
While Wright’s lawyers assert that Blockstream has control over the Bitcoin network, it does not. Bitcoin is a decentralized network that is run by thousands of nodes.
Featured Image: Shutterstock/wk1003mike