3 ms·

The question is why that fact alone would affect the value of this company's shares. Just identifying him doesn't mean he'd liquidate.

• simias 6y ago
  It's still a huge known unknown for Bitcoin. What is Satoshi was linked to a shady organization, or something the general public wouldn't want to support for instance? Imagine if Satoshi turned out to be an avatar for the American, Russian or Chinese government for instance, that would both give them a huge leverage on the blockchain and mean that they'd benefit hugely from widespread adoption of the cryptocurrency. In turn that could motivate other governments to heavily regulate bitcoin as they'd see it as a foreign-controlled currency. That's just fiction, but that's the point, nobody knows for sure who or what Satoshi Nakamoto is, and that's a risk.
  • yissp 6y ago
    It already has a pretty strong association with illegal activity, doesn't it? After speculation I'd wager buying drugs is the most common use-case.
• jki275 6y ago
  It's not just knowing who he is -- if he's identified he might decide to move those coins. If he did that, it could affect the price. I'm not sure anyone knows what the exact impact of that would be. I don't personally believe Satoshi was an actual person, and don't believe he'll ever be identified. Most likely the keys to those early blocks have been destroyed, and most people wouldn't do that unless there was an institutional reason for it.
• anonymousab 6y ago
  > Just identifying him doesn't mean he'd liquidate True, but it is not a super unlikely outcome either. Identification alone could also result in a loss of trust in the system of Satoshi turned out to be, say, a government. Could go the opposite way too. It's an unknown that is worth calling out.
• PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Risk factors don’t mean “this will definitely happen”. It means this is a known risk for the system underpinning their profits. A more likely scenario is that the keys to those coins are compromised, somehow, given their unbelievably high value.
  • azinman2 6y ago
    I’m surprised someone doesn’t spent 10B in computation to brute force those keys.
    • meetups323 6y ago
      ~50B in the account at current valuation, if Satoshi starts liquidating the value goes down dramatically; if it gets out that it isn't actually Satoshi acting, the value goes down even more (OMG if the creator of bitcoin can get hacked I can get hacked, this is a terrible investment, I'm out). I don't think it'd be possible to recoup the investment, but if you have a strong argument otherwise I'm sure some billionaire/nation-state investors would love to hear it.
    • drexlspivey 6y ago
      You can’t brute force 256 bit keys