Craig Wright enters settlement talks in $10 billion Bitcoin lawsuit

Self-proclaimed bitcoin inventor Craig Wright is in settlement talks with the estate of Dave Kleiman, which is suing him in a bombshell $10 billion lawsuit.

Both the Kleiman estate and Wright have asked the judge for a 30-day extension of all case deadlines to facilitate their settlement talks, according to a September 17 filing in Florida federal court.

“The parties have been engaged in extensive settlement negotiations and have reached a non-binding agreement in principle to settle this matter,” according to the joint motion.

Both the Kleiman estate and Craig Wright underscored that “reaching a final binding settlement agreement” is in both of their best interests.

VanEck, SolidX pull the plug on Bitcoin ETF proposal

The VanEck, SolidX super team has withdrawn its proposal for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), according to an SEC filing issued earlier today.

The VanEck investment firm and blockchain startup SolidX have faced numerous denials and delays from the SEC in its attempt to publicly list shares of its Bitcoin Trust. Its latest proposal was headed for a final deadline of October 18—and, in all likelihood, yet another denial.

But by pulling its proposal now, VanEck and SolidX are able to re-file their proposal at a later date and, in effect, reset the clock.

“We are committed to support Bitcoin and Bitcoin-focused financial innovation. Bringing to market a physical, liquid and insured ETF remains a top priority,” Gabor Gurbacs, VanEck director of digital asset strategies, said in a post on Twitter. “We continue to work closely with regulators [and] market participants to get one step closer every day.”

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Wells Fargo to launch proprietary digital currency 

What you need to know

Wells Fargo is launching a pilot program for a digital currency system that will be used for efficiently settling cross-border trades internally across its global network. 

According to a press release, the digital currency, dubbed “Wells Fargo Digital Cash,” will run on a proprietary “distributed ledger technology” (DLT) network.
 

Why it's important

The tech, said the bank, will help “achieve near real-time money movement without impact to the underlying account, transaction postings or reconcilement infrastructure with international transactions,” while allowing it to operate its settlement infrastructure outside of restrictive operating hours. 

The currency will stand in as a surrogate for whatever fiat is being traded, allowing the bank to better streamline transactions. "It tokenizes fiat currency, and moves it on an internal distributed ledger-based rail," a Wells Fargo spokesman told Decrypt.

Tether clogs Ethereum

Tether has switched its focus to Ethereum, and it's already putting a heavy load on the blockchain platform. The stablecoin was mostly based on Bitcoin (via a tool called the Omni layer) but has recently swapped the majority of its tokens over to Ethereum instead.

In fact, since July, the number of Ethereum-based Tether transactions has increased from around 18,000 per day to 187,912 as of September 9, according to data from Coin Metrics. These transactions now account for 25% of all Ethereum activity.

Read more here.