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> It’s possible that Satoshi himself will try to liquidate his stake at some point, crashing BTC itself and make off with a cool billion. Who knows. That might

> It’s possible that Satoshi himself will try to liquidate his stake at some point, crashing BTC itself and make off with a cool billion. Who knows. That might have been the plan all along. Not quite possible with the auditing capabilities Bitcoin provides. The moment any amount from those accounts is moved, Bitcoin would probably tank.

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
I wonder what the maximum leverage you could short with if you had access to those coins... Break the private key, do a 30x leverage short and move the coins!
- lamontcg 8y ago
  It is that last bit where it gets sticky. If you tank the market and create systemic insolvency then you might hold $1B of short contracts at an exchange where the operators have packed up and fled to anonymous sandy beaches, and for all your cleverness those contracts and $10 might buy you lunch tomorrow.
  - omarchowdhury 8y ago
    > It is that last bit where it gets sticky. I understand we're doing thought experiments here, but I'd say the really tricky part is breaking the private key.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
      > the really tricky part is breaking the private key That's the interesting thing, you can try to brute force keys in general by just throwing enough money at the problem. Technology always advances and makes cryptography less secure.
abakker 8y ago
There is no auditing whether he sold all his keys in the physical world. They may never have "transacted" on the blockchain, but that does not mean he never just gave away the ability to transact them physically. He may also have taken out a loan from a traditional financial institution and used them as collateral. There is a very real possibility that they are in fact owned by someone else now, who has made the same exact calculation you have - they are a valuable asset that has exactly zero liquidity.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
  > There is no auditing whether he sold all his keys in the physical world. Are you trying to claim that someone would buy Satoshi's coins without moving them to a wallet they control? In this scenario, the person would have 'purchased' the coins with precisely zero assurance that Satoshi wouldn't just move them to a new address at any point, as he/she/they still have the private keys.
  - abakker 8y ago
    Someone could have the whole wallet... As I said, it is impossible to verify that that isn't the case. He could have taken a loan with the whole wallet as collateral. That isn't the same as claiming that Satoshi did that, but it's not like the audibility of the blockchain spreads all the way to the real world. There's really no saying what Satoshi has done, and the anonymity means there's no way to find out.
    - remcob 8y ago
      It.. doesn't work like that. Suppose someone sells you a private key, or even a hardware wallet, claiming that it "contains much Bitcoin". There's no way for you to be sure that the seller doesn't have a backup. Or is selling ten other copies to other people. It's like trying to sell an account by selling the password to it. The first thing you do is change it so the previous owner can not get in anymore. Before you did that you can not be sure that you are the only one with access. On Bitcoin the only way to change the password is to move the funds to a new address.
themagician 8y ago
It would tank, but he still may be able to do it. Even if the price plummeted to 1/10th its current value it would still be a fortune.
Scoundreller 8y ago
Could this work? Just run an exchange and become long cash and short bitcoin, or acquire an exchange that is long cash and short bitcoin. Liquidate the exchange and everyone is even. It's gotta be doable with the amount of exchanges that we've seen that are short both!
abecedarius 8y ago
Why should it tank? This would resolve uncertainty about the fate of a few percent of the whole supply, so the direct effect is bounded by that few percent (depending on how likely the market thinks it's been lost). Indirectly it could jump-start a recursive reaction, but then anything could. Dumping most of it all at once could tank the price, but to do that Satoshi would have to be an idiot.
Waterluvian 8y ago
Wouldn't someone in that position just start a slow and consistent divestment over a long period of time? Make it business as usual.
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  The wallets have been untouched for a decade. The first bitcoin to sell from it wouldn't actually crash the market, but the emotional effect of a small chunk of a very large chunk suddenly moving would be fairly big.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    I don’t disagree, but it could have the reverse effect. Everything from just a ton of media attention and some adoption, to maybe something really positive like coins getting deposited to charity wallets (pineapple foundation seemed to get a lot of attention/vitality for donating their bitcoin). And it would be pretty ironic if it the coins moved and price of bitcoin crashed and actually became a peer to peer electronic currency for the masses.
    - omarchowdhury 8y ago
      > And it would be pretty ironic if it the coins moved and price of bitcoin crashed and actually became a peer to peer electronic currency for the masses. The price of Bitcoin isn't what is preventing it from becoming a bonafide peer to peer electronic currency. Scalability and UX issues are.
      - Complexicate 8y ago
        I agree with UX, but scalability has a working solution in the Lightning Network. However, that needs major UX development... Bitcoin also needs fungibility: "Fungibility is the only property of sound money that is missing from Bitcoin & Litecoin. Now that the scaling debate is behind us, the next battleground will be on fungibility and privacy. I am now focused on making Litecoin more fungible by adding Confidential Transactions." -Charlie Lee https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1089935081337085952 https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1089935081337085952

WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago

I wonder what the maximum leverage you could short with if you had access to those coins... Break the private key, do a 30x leverage short and move the coins!

lamontcg 8y ago
It is that last bit where it gets sticky. If you tank the market and create systemic insolvency then you might hold $1B of short contracts at an exchange where the operators have packed up and fled to anonymous sandy beaches, and for all your cleverness those contracts and $10 might buy you lunch tomorrow.
- omarchowdhury 8y ago
  > It is that last bit where it gets sticky. I understand we're doing thought experiments here, but I'd say the really tricky part is breaking the private key.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    > the really tricky part is breaking the private key That's the interesting thing, you can try to brute force keys in general by just throwing enough money at the problem. Technology always advances and makes cryptography less secure.

abakker 8y ago

There is no auditing whether he sold all his keys in the physical world. They may never have "transacted" on the blockchain, but that does not mean he never just gave away the ability to transact them physically. He may also have taken out a loan from a traditional financial institution and used them as collateral. There is a very real possibility that they are in fact owned by someone else now, who has made the same exact calculation you have - they are a valuable asset that has exactly zero liquidity.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
> There is no auditing whether he sold all his keys in the physical world. Are you trying to claim that someone would buy Satoshi's coins without moving them to a wallet they control? In this scenario, the person would have 'purchased' the coins with precisely zero assurance that Satoshi wouldn't just move them to a new address at any point, as he/she/they still have the private keys.
- abakker 8y ago
  Someone could have the whole wallet... As I said, it is impossible to verify that that isn't the case. He could have taken a loan with the whole wallet as collateral. That isn't the same as claiming that Satoshi did that, but it's not like the audibility of the blockchain spreads all the way to the real world. There's really no saying what Satoshi has done, and the anonymity means there's no way to find out.
  - remcob 8y ago
    It.. doesn't work like that. Suppose someone sells you a private key, or even a hardware wallet, claiming that it "contains much Bitcoin". There's no way for you to be sure that the seller doesn't have a backup. Or is selling ten other copies to other people. It's like trying to sell an account by selling the password to it. The first thing you do is change it so the previous owner can not get in anymore. Before you did that you can not be sure that you are the only one with access. On Bitcoin the only way to change the password is to move the funds to a new address.

themagician 8y ago

It would tank, but he still may be able to do it. Even if the price plummeted to 1/10th its current value it would still be a fortune.

Scoundreller 8y ago

Could this work? Just run an exchange and become long cash and short bitcoin, or acquire an exchange that is long cash and short bitcoin. Liquidate the exchange and everyone is even. It's gotta be doable with the amount of exchanges that we've seen that are short both!

abecedarius 8y ago

Why should it tank? This would resolve uncertainty about the fate of a few percent of the whole supply, so the direct effect is bounded by that few percent (depending on how likely the market thinks it's been lost). Indirectly it could jump-start a recursive reaction, but then anything could. Dumping most of it all at once could tank the price, but to do that Satoshi would have to be an idiot.

Waterluvian 8y ago

Wouldn't someone in that position just start a slow and consistent divestment over a long period of time? Make it business as usual.

Scoundreller 8y ago
The wallets have been untouched for a decade. The first bitcoin to sell from it wouldn't actually crash the market, but the emotional effect of a small chunk of a very large chunk suddenly moving would be fairly big.
- will_brown 8y ago
  I don’t disagree, but it could have the reverse effect. Everything from just a ton of media attention and some adoption, to maybe something really positive like coins getting deposited to charity wallets (pineapple foundation seemed to get a lot of attention/vitality for donating their bitcoin). And it would be pretty ironic if it the coins moved and price of bitcoin crashed and actually became a peer to peer electronic currency for the masses.
  - omarchowdhury 8y ago
    > And it would be pretty ironic if it the coins moved and price of bitcoin crashed and actually became a peer to peer electronic currency for the masses. The price of Bitcoin isn't what is preventing it from becoming a bonafide peer to peer electronic currency. Scalability and UX issues are.
    - Complexicate 8y ago
      I agree with UX, but scalability has a working solution in the Lightning Network. However, that needs major UX development... Bitcoin also needs fungibility: "Fungibility is the only property of sound money that is missing from Bitcoin & Litecoin. Now that the scaling debate is behind us, the next battleground will be on fungibility and privacy. I am now focused on making Litecoin more fungible by adding Confidential Transactions." -Charlie Lee https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1089935081337085952 https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/1089935081337085952