Bitcoin Forum

I was reading an article in regards to the 10 year anniversary of Bitcoin and people are still talking about the true identity of SN. It seems that the only form of proof people would accept in regards to Satoshi claims are the Genesis Keys. This got me thinking. What could the real Satoshi do with the Genesis keys now that Bitcoin market cap is $67,000,000,000?

If the genesis keys were ever found and unlocked the wallet of all those bitcoins then I would imagine the holder could essentially crash the price by selling them.
But if the holder of those keys were truly the creator of bitcoin I can not see them doing this to his creation.
That would be against to all that satoshi stood for.

I agree. Scary to think about though!

..if Genesis key were revealed,,then the doubt of many people with regards to the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto will be resolve..hence this would have a great impact to the public that if all the blocks were unlock,maybe there is slowly shrinkage in the price of Bitcoin.

If Satoshi really wanted bitcoin to flourish and wanted to help people from separating themselves from the banks, he would not do such foolish things to intentionally crash the market and destroy bitcoin as a whole. A signed message from one of his known addresses is already an enough evidence that Satoshi is still around and is still with us, though I don't think he would do such thing as it will only produce massive hype and unwanted attention for bitcoin as he already did what he needed to do anyways. Signing a message is just another trivial thing to do at this point in time.

Why do you think so? One of the biggest advantages of bitcoin is to have financial freedom and sovereignty. Why would it be against what SN "stood for"? It's his money. He should be able to do whatever he wants with it(yes, even drop every single one of the BTC he has on the markets, though I doubt it), regardless of what the effect on the market is. It's not like it would kill bitcoin. It would only drop/crash the price. But who cares? Unless you're only here to make money short-term, then it shouldn't matter that much.

I think if the SN wallet ever ever had one little coin plucked from it, it would instantly stir market instability. Primarily from fear of what would potentially occur if the coins were to be returned to the market en masse'.

Short story, sentiment based fear that your $3,xxx coins could rapidly become $0.25 coins.

Emotions drive markets and liquidity would rapidly evaporate.

M2c

-CTS-

the thing you are referring to here is probably about the lies that some people tell without proof and it is referring to the fact that the very least thing that anybody who claims to be Satoshi must do is to provide cryptographic proof that he owns the key to address(es) that is clearly associated with Satoshi Nakamoto. and without that anything they say should be disregarded and they should be considered fraudulent.

and by the way nobody can "spend" the coins created in Genesis Block because it is enforced by the protocol so even having the key to that address won't work.

The genesis keys control almost everything. Of course he can get cashed up if he has the keys!!!

"everything"?! what do you think that "key is"? it is just a private key and in case of bitcoin and the way consensus rules work the network will always reject any coin that is spent by that key. in other words the 50BTC block reward that went to this address: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa is unspendable.

I don't think SN will dump market after finding the Genesis Keys. But thinking about it hurts me. After founding these keys things will not turn like in the old days.

Satoshi can destroy the price, if he suddenly sells those coins on public exchanges. Fortunately for us, most exchanges have strict KYC/AML regulations and Satoshi knows this. Someone like Satoshi value his anonymity, so he/she would never sell those coins on a platform that might reveal his/her true identity.

He might push those coins through several mixer services <even his own>and buy goods via Dark markets and sell that for fiat currencies to hide his/her identity.  8)

that would be complicated! there are way easier methods of selling your bitcoin off the exchange markets and still retain your anonymity. and nowadays there are lots of trades taking place outside of exchanges that the volume is enough for selling large amounts of bitcoin, that is how whales buy (accumulate) bitcoin during accumulation phases without letting the exchange prices be affected and without letting anybody find out.

Satoshi will not take such stupid step, trust me.

trust you...It sounds like you know him personally ;)

An interesting question which makes you think. I believe that the time when everyone will pay with crypto coins just around the corner ... 

Nick is probably never going to touch the genesis block
If he needs to cash anything out it would probably come from the BTC he mined on the early days
My guess is that this won't happen until bitcoin gets more privacy options

if Satoshi wanted anonymous features in bitcoin so that he could spend his coins then he would have focused on anonymity from the first release but that clearly has never been the case and i don't think bitcoin can ever become fully anonymous. (it already offers enough privacy)

logically I agree with rdbase, with a long journey the bitcoin struggle is impossible to drop in the instant by its creator, even I think SN is doing something to increase the value of bitcoin

It does in a way, you're right.
There are also mixers I understand
But you can't just rule out a possible and sensible privacy increment just because it wasn't the main focus of attention in 2009-2010

I also should add that the possibility of Szabo cashing out on early mined coins is low, in my opinion. And cashing out on the genesis block, 0.
Signing/ verifying on the genesis block? That's another story.