Self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin, Craig Wright challenges court order to pay 500,000 BTC

Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed creator of Bitcoin recently challenged a court order which would require him to pay 500,000 BTC to the estate of a former peer.

Craig Wright challenges the court

On August 30, Andres Rivero, Wright’s attorney filed a document with the United States District Court in the Southern District of Florida to ask for a two-week extension to file a motion which would effectively challenge Magistrate Bruce Reinhart’s order.

In the document, Rivero states that Wright “does not concede that Magistrate Reinhardt had the power to enter the order that he did.” Furthermore, Rivero added that Wright’s legal team requires an additional 14 days to look into the validity of Reinhardt’s order.

For any motion which challenges the court order, this would be due as of September 10, but Wright’s legal team’s request moves it to September 24, Rivero cited in the document.

Furthermore, Wright’s legal team cited a category five hurricane which is threatening Central and South Florida as justification for the extension.

The document states:

“Central and South Florida are currently threatened by a major hurricane. Hurricane Dorian is expected to make landfall in Florida early next week and counsel for Dr Wright have been expending significant time preparing for the hurricane, which has limited their ability to work on this matter.”

Does Wright have 500,000 BTC?

In his conclusion, Rivero states that the motion was “brought in good faith” as opposed to “purposes of delay.”

Peter McCormack, a crypto podcaster, who in the past was sued by Wright for accusations of fraud, questioned whether Wright can pay the hefty fine at all. McCormack put out a tweet on August 28 betting $10,000 that Wright does not have the funds at all.

Judge Reinhardt’s order is a fresh twist in the case which dates back to the class-action suit filed by Dave Kleiman’s estate back in February 2018. Back then, Wright was accused of the theft of hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin which was worth more than $5 billion at the time of the filing.

At the time of writing Bitcoin is up by 6.27% and trading at $10,377.30 as per data from CoinMarketCap. Be sure to check in at 14:00 for your top ten cryptocurrency news snippets and prices.