Bitcoin trial: Defendant wins dispute over $50B in Bitcoin

By KEN SWEET
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Craig Wright, a computer scientist who claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin, prevailed in a civil trial verdict Monday against the family of a deceased business partner that claimed it was owed half of a cryptocurrency fortune worth tens of billions. A Florida jury found that Wright did not owe half of 1.1 million Bitcoin to the family of David Kleiman, Wright’s one-time business partner. The Bitcoin at the center of the highly technical trial are worth approximately $50 billion based on Monday’s prices. They were among the first Bitcoin to be created through mining and could only be owned by a person or entity involved with the digital currency from its beginning.