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The most remarkable aspect of bitcoin is that if Satoshi is a single person, it's the first time in history someone has become a billionaire by themselves. It'
by sillysaurus3 9y ago
The most remarkable aspect of bitcoin is that if Satoshi is a single person, it's the first time in history someone has become a billionaire by themselves.
It's not quite that clear cut, but it's not too far off.
- Shank 9y agoThe only problem is that Satoshi's coins are watched like a hawk. Satoshi can't liquidate any of them, or even really move them without causing an immediate reaction in the community. Exchanges might halt trading, whilst it would immediately give away his or her identity. If the price of bitcoin doesn't crash following a coin movement, Satoshi's life is most certainly at risk. If it does, then the coins are worth nothing.
- wallace_f 9y agoWhy would Satoshi's life be at risk?
- sillysaurus3 9y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lfobc/i_am_a_timetraveler_from_the_future_here_to_beg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lfobc/i_am_a_time...
- giarc 9y agoWait - is that user in any relation to this Luka Magnotta? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_Magnotta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_Magnotta)
- wallace_f 9y agoJesus Christ, that is a psychopath. "During the video, the 1987 New Order song "True Faith" He must have liked American Psycho What was his motive? The Wikipedia doesn't seem to say
- Torn 9y agoIt's theorised they have ~1m bitcoins, at 10k each that's a 10 billion net-worth. Presumably that's enough for people to want to hunt them down and coerce them into giving up private keys https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/ https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-f...
- acchow 9y agoThere are plenty of billionaires in the world. Are they kidnapped with great frequency?
- alexbeloi 9y agoTheir billions are liquid and can be used to buy protection (secluded homes, private transportation), Satoshi's aren't (in so far as he hasn't liquidated them).
- Tuxer 9y agoNone of their wealth is solely controllable by a private key and 24 words.
- lojack 9y agoMuch easier to steal a private key than liquidate a billion dollars from many banks and other illiquid sources. Especially when most of those transactions can be reversed, or otherwise raise immediate red flags.
- meowface 9y agoBut if you have his private key you still need to convert the Bitcoins. This isn't easy to do anonymously, as can be seen with Alexander Vinnik's arrest. If someone actually robbed Satoshi and let him live, he'd probably alert the world and the wallet would be watched like a hawk. And even if he's dead or unaware of the theft, a lot of people will notice of Satoshi's Bitcoins start being transferred.
- atomicnumber1 9y ago
- acchow 9y agoWhy would Satoshi's life be at risk?
- modeless 9y agoSatoshi is almost certainly dead. No living person could resist the temptation to talk about their creation of a 100 billion dollar phenomenon. Two plausible candidates who died at about the right time are Hal Finney and Dave Kleiman.
- mikekchar 9y agoEdit: I misread the initial post, but still think what I wrote is reasonably relevant. Had I been Satoshi (and I'm not), I would have no trouble not talking about it. I think this is unlikely. I think it is much more likely that he deleted his keys -- on purpose. Despite the common "Bitcoin was created as a scam" sentiment, I see very little evidence of this. Satoshi appears to have just been a very idealistic person who thought that he was doing something useful. From the beginning he said that he shouldn't hang on to those initial coins because it would undermine the validity of the currency. Out of curiosity I've read through a fair amount of the original dev forum archives (I forget where they are, but I'm sure they are not hard to find -- last time I looked I found them right away). As far as I can tell, it is what it appears to be. Which is not, of course, to say that there aren't plenty of scammers in the Bitcoin world. It just seems that Satoshi wasn't one of them.
- sillysaurus3 9y agohttp://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/
- JabavuAdams 9y ago> No living person could resist the temptation to talk about their creation of a 100 billion dollar phenomenon. This is a very strong claim, with precious little evidence. If you think this is impossible, you haven't met enough different kinds of people.
- nl 9y agoPlenty of artists have tried to stay anonymous. Happy to stay anonymous and leave a huge amount of money alone is an unusual mix, but the diversity of how people think should surprise no one.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI don't follow. By themselves means? If he wants a billion dollars he still needs someone to trade it from somebody willing to trade with Bitcoin. How is that different from Bill Gates?
- cryptoz 9y agoNobody in this world does anything 'by themselves' by any reasonable definition. Satoshi built incredible things on the shoulders of other incredible things, like roads, the internet, computers, etc.
- vinchuco 9y agoThat's a big if.
- zzxxddere333 9y agoFounder of ethereum will soon be a billionaire as well.