As Cointelegraph reported yesterday, cocky-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) creator Craig Wright claims that Bitcoin can and will be seized to suit court orders. What follows is an analysis of whether what he says is possible and plausible.

Screenshots resurfaced on February. 26, show that Wright claims Bitcoin will be seized without using the owner's individual keys. Instead, it will be moved through miners and nodes coordinating to comply with a court gild. He said that code is police force but "courts can mandate patching code."

Cryptocurrency security consultant Sergio Demian Lerner told Cointelegraph that Wright's proffer "is morally and legally ridiculous" given that the stolen Bitcoins "may accept switched hands likewise many times to confiscated now."

Mining puddle compulsion could piece of work, in theory

Furthermore, Lerner besides said that miners cannot take control of the Bitcoins without changing the consensus protocol. Still, he admitted that mining pools, on the other hand, may be able to block Bitcoins if forced. He explained that governments could endeavor to force nearly mining pools to prevent some Bitcoins from irresolute easily with a process similar to a 51% set on, but he does not expect this approach to work:

"The largest pools are composed by many smaller independent mining farms, and those farms would just start mining solo to prevent coercion instead of being part of such a pool. Therefore I suspect the government-controlled mining puddle volition just  vanish from the bachelor active and useful hashrate."

Lerner ended that such an arroyo would demand police force enforcement to prosecute miners that mine on pools that practise not enforce censorship in many dissimilar jurisdictions. Even if such measures would exist taken by governments, he expects that "Bitcoin would only switch to some other form of proof-of-work and keep moving forrard."

Author of the first proof-of-work crypto Karma System Emin Gün Sirer suggested that the claim is part of Wright's endeavour to "lay down a misguided foundation to make his followers believe that miners can unilaterally reassign coins." He said:

"This is likely part of his strategy to have ownership of Satoshi's coins. Information technology'due south very transparent, shallow, and unconvincing. My professional stance is that he'due south a nobody trying to pull a uncomplicated scam on unsophisticated investors captivated past his unconvincing, poorly constructed, fraud-ridden tale."

Wright is drowned in criticism

While Wright has e'er been a controversial figure in the cryptocurrency space, lately he attracted much more criticism than usual.

Just this month, co-founder and CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance Changpeng Zhao defined Wright as "a fraud" and the Canadian role player that played Helm Kirk William Shatner said that he does not believe his claims. More recently, Zhao besides told Cointelegraph:

"He claims to be the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, which is a prevarication. He hurts the credibility of Bitcoin and is a disgrace to our unabridged manufacture."

Nevertheless undeterred, Wright decided this month to warn Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash that they should stop using the Bitcoin database in order to avoid potential lawsuits.