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> 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 t

> 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.
  - asynchrony 8y ago
    It works that way if he transferred the private key and then they murdered him. Blockchains and meatspace have different rules.
- techbubble 8y ago
  The only way anyone could assume control of the account as collateral is by knowing the private key. If the funds are not transferred to another wallet, then both parties now have knowledge of the private key. As such, the entity providing the loan has to trust that Satoshi will not move the funds. That would be an insane risk to take.

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.
- asynchrony 8y ago
  It works that way if he transferred the private key and then they murdered him. Blockchains and meatspace have different rules.
techbubble 8y ago
The only way anyone could assume control of the account as collateral is by knowing the private key. If the funds are not transferred to another wallet, then both parties now have knowledge of the private key. As such, the entity providing the loan has to trust that Satoshi will not move the funds. That would be an insane risk to take.