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You think a guy smart enough to give birth to Bitcoin, and maintain complete anonymity while doing so and while communicating in public forums etc, would forget

You think a guy smart enough to give birth to Bitcoin, and maintain complete anonymity while doing so and while communicating in public forums etc, would forget his private key? You just need to remember one seed and suddenly you have billions of dollars of value stored in your brain. I don't think that's a realistic possibility.

arcticbull 6y ago
Sure why not! It was utterly worthless at the time (and today in my opinion) and we know plenty of people who lost multi tens of thousands of bitcoins. All it takes is spilling some coffee on your laptop.
- ogogmad 6y ago
  Everything you say is true*, but there's plenty of other evidence that Craig Wright is a fraud, independent of whether he's in possession of Satoshi's private keys: https://craigwright.online/ https://craigwright.online/ * - Except where you point out that it's your opinion
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  > Sure why not! For multiple reasons > It was utterly worthless at the time If you read what Satoshi wrote, he didn't think it would be worthless in the future at all. > (and today in my opinion) Your opinion is contradicted by reality > we know plenty of people who lost multi tens of thousands of bitcoins. They weren't the creators
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
UncleMeat 6y ago
Of course. I know a lot of security phds who fall for phishing emails. The hugely likely outcome of btc was that it would end up worthless. "Oh crap, those keys were stored on that disk" after dropping it on the floor or having a laptop stolen is an entirely reasonable situation.
f430 6y ago
Or perhaps being incarcerated for 25 years shortly after releasing bitcoin
chill1 6y ago
> You think a guy smart enough to give birth to Bitcoin, and maintain complete anonymity while doing so and while communicating in public forums etc, would forget his private key? > You just need to remember one seed and suddenly you have billions of dollars of value stored in your brain. I don't think that's a realistic possibility. BIP39 mnemonics ("seeds") were not around in the early days. Bitcoin core software generated random private keys that were completely unrelated to one another. So it was necessary to backup the wallet file each time that new keys were created. Most users would generate hundreds (or thousands) of keys at a time, to reduce the frequency of backups.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  I see. Very interesting! I wasn't involved that early so wasn't aware :) Anyway, my general point stands, just s/remember a seed/store an encrypted file Personally I think Satoshi is either dead or never going to move his bitcoin.
- eecks 6y ago
  So how could you use these private keys now? Considering they're not seeds. EDIT: downvoted for asking a question
  - bayesianbot 6y ago
    I can still import a wallet from at least 2012 and move the coins using the official client just like it was created yesterday. edit: and obviously you can't remember that but if you encrypt your wallet you can save it to long term storages like Dropbox / differrent servers / medias / etc, what Satoshi would most likely be doing
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    They're still supported by most if not all wallets.
  - chill1 6y ago
    Any one of those individual private keys could be imported into another wallet software application (e.g Electrum). Then the funds can be swept to a newer wallet that has a seed backup. Private keys are just numbers. That has not changed since the beginning.
Bellamy 6y ago
Satoshi was a mathematical and programming genius who did not take backups. LOL.
skywhopper 6y ago
Of course this is easily possible.
betterunix2 6y ago
Maybe his house burned down and he had failed to keep offsite backups. Maybe he never made backups in the first place and his hard drive failed. People make all kinds of mistakes, sometimes very costly mistakes.
- SquareWheel 6y ago
  And plus, who knew it would grow so big when things were just getting started? For all we know it was used as a test of the program rather than a real account.
  - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    Satoshi, Hal Finney, etc were very aware that it at least theoretically could become the world's primary transaction system. Indeed it was that insight that motivated Satoshi to make Bitcoin in the first place.
- adventured 6y ago
  > People make all kinds of mistakes, sometimes very costly mistakes. For example, pizza-Bitcoin guy. The stories always talk about how he traded 10,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas. That's only a small part of the story, what actually happened is drastically worse. He sold several times that many Bitcoins in other low-value transactions at the same time (some straight up for cash) and did the pizza trade more than once. Pizza guy likely traded a minimum of 50,000 Bitcoins for less than a few hundred dollars of value. That's $1.6 billion presently at 50k.

arcticbull 6y ago

Sure why not! It was utterly worthless at the time (and today in my opinion) and we know plenty of people who lost multi tens of thousands of bitcoins. All it takes is spilling some coffee on your laptop.

ogogmad 6y ago
Everything you say is true*, but there's plenty of other evidence that Craig Wright is a fraud, independent of whether he's in possession of Satoshi's private keys: https://craigwright.online/ https://craigwright.online/ * - Except where you point out that it's your opinion
CyberDildonics 6y ago
> Sure why not! For multiple reasons > It was utterly worthless at the time If you read what Satoshi wrote, he didn't think it would be worthless in the future at all. > (and today in my opinion) Your opinion is contradicted by reality > we know plenty of people who lost multi tens of thousands of bitcoins. They weren't the creators
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

UncleMeat 6y ago

Of course. I know a lot of security phds who fall for phishing emails. The hugely likely outcome of btc was that it would end up worthless. "Oh crap, those keys were stored on that disk" after dropping it on the floor or having a laptop stolen is an entirely reasonable situation.

f430 6y ago

Or perhaps being incarcerated for 25 years shortly after releasing bitcoin

chill1 6y ago

> You think a guy smart enough to give birth to Bitcoin, and maintain complete anonymity while doing so and while communicating in public forums etc, would forget his private key? > You just need to remember one seed and suddenly you have billions of dollars of value stored in your brain. I don't think that's a realistic possibility. BIP39 mnemonics ("seeds") were not around in the early days. Bitcoin core software generated random private keys that were completely unrelated to one another. So it was necessary to backup the wallet file each time that new keys were created. Most users would generate hundreds (or thousands) of keys at a time, to reduce the frequency of backups.

__blockcipher__ 6y ago
I see. Very interesting! I wasn't involved that early so wasn't aware :) Anyway, my general point stands, just s/remember a seed/store an encrypted file Personally I think Satoshi is either dead or never going to move his bitcoin.
eecks 6y ago
So how could you use these private keys now? Considering they're not seeds. EDIT: downvoted for asking a question
- bayesianbot 6y ago
  I can still import a wallet from at least 2012 and move the coins using the official client just like it was created yesterday. edit: and obviously you can't remember that but if you encrypt your wallet you can save it to long term storages like Dropbox / differrent servers / medias / etc, what Satoshi would most likely be doing
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  They're still supported by most if not all wallets.
- chill1 6y ago
  Any one of those individual private keys could be imported into another wallet software application (e.g Electrum). Then the funds can be swept to a newer wallet that has a seed backup. Private keys are just numbers. That has not changed since the beginning.

Bellamy 6y ago

Satoshi was a mathematical and programming genius who did not take backups. LOL.

skywhopper 6y ago

Of course this is easily possible.

betterunix2 6y ago

Maybe his house burned down and he had failed to keep offsite backups. Maybe he never made backups in the first place and his hard drive failed. People make all kinds of mistakes, sometimes very costly mistakes.

SquareWheel 6y ago
And plus, who knew it would grow so big when things were just getting started? For all we know it was used as a test of the program rather than a real account.
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  Satoshi, Hal Finney, etc were very aware that it at least theoretically could become the world's primary transaction system. Indeed it was that insight that motivated Satoshi to make Bitcoin in the first place.
adventured 6y ago
> People make all kinds of mistakes, sometimes very costly mistakes. For example, pizza-Bitcoin guy. The stories always talk about how he traded 10,000 Bitcoins for two pizzas. That's only a small part of the story, what actually happened is drastically worse. He sold several times that many Bitcoins in other low-value transactions at the same time (some straight up for cash) and did the pizza trade more than once. Pizza guy likely traded a minimum of 50,000 Bitcoins for less than a few hundred dollars of value. That's $1.6 billion presently at 50k.