If Satoshi saw today’s Bitcoin, would he call it a failure?

[Abiky]

We’ve always said, especially us early adopters, that Bitcoin is decentralized money meant to cut out third parties, to give us a way to move funds freely without the government watching or banks handling every transaction. But looking at the situation now, yeah, Bitcoin has grown fast and become really valuable…

I don’t have exact numbers, but I’m pretty sure most Bitcoin is sitting in centralized exchanges or ETFs, basically the new Wall Street. And the one thing we all hated before, KYC it’s everywhere now, not just in exchanges but even on gambling sites.

Satoshi’s vision was peer-to-peer transactions, yet most of today’s activity goes through centralized platforms.

So the question is, do you think Satoshi would be happy with where Bitcoin is now? yes, it’s valuable, but the original goal doesn’t seem fully achieved.

A failure? I think, yes. The reason for this is pretty obvious. Bitcoin turned into a playground for "Wall Street" after the approval of spot ETFs. It's now deeply integrated into the centralized financial system. Satoshi created BTC as a response against the inherent failures of the centralized financial system (the Great Financial Crisis of 2008).

Unfortunately, greed has led us to the point where we are right now. The vast majority of people don't care about decentralization as long as their pockets are filled with money. Not only Bitcoin turned into a failure by being unable to separate itself from banks and "Wall Street", but also by being unable to scale towards the masses. On-chain scalability is limited as we speak. I recall Satoshi saying at some point that "Bitcoin could already scale much larger than Visa with existing hardware at a fraction of the cost. It never really hits a scale ceiling". And what do we get? A centralized off-chain scaling solution (L2) called "The Lightning Network" that's full of flaws/bugs. I don't want to spread any FUD. But the facts are the facts. At least, Bitcoin is open source. Maybe there's hope after all?

[nakamura12]

Satoshi Nakamoto would be happy seeing bitcoin today because it means that his work has come to fruition after so many years. If I were satoshi nakamoto is I would also be happy to see my work is a success and I also think it is also a failure since some people are using it for illegal activities such as money laundering and other illegal things that bitcoin can be used for. In short, my answer is both yes it's a success and failure at the same time.

[Botnake]

First and foremost, the fact that bitcoin has survived more than a decade of challenges, that already proves that bitcoin is a big success. And for sure, Satoshi is happy seeing bitcoin of what it has become right now.

However, when it comes to seeing bitcoin mostly in centralized exchanges right now and that staying anonymous has lost its value, that’s quite unfortunate for bitcoin, but looking at the current position of bitcoin, there’s actually no need to worry. Bitcoin is making its way on its own, that’s why a lot have put their trust into it, most particularly those big institutions that are currently stacking bitcoin at the moment while waiting for another great opportunity to add more bitcoin on their portfolio.

[fuguebtc]

Satoshi Nakamoto would be happy seeing bitcoin today because it means that his work has come to fruition after so many years. If I were satoshi nakamoto is I would also be happy to see my work is a success and I also think it is also a failure since some people are using it for illegal activities such as money laundering and other illegal things that bitcoin can be used for. In short, my answer is both yes it's a success and failure at the same time.

But you and all of us are not Satoshi, and our goals are not the same as his. As Abiky said above, his goal in creating bitcoin was to create a peer-to-peer currency that would reduce dependence on governments and banks, but now it is becoming a playground for Wall Street. They even seek to integrate it into their centralized system and intervene more deeply. Not to mention, our goal is to make money from it, no one uses it as a currency.

It can be seen that our goals are completely different from his. How can we answer this question for him, or believe that he is very happy with what is going on? Let's not judge Satoshi's vision by our greed.

[henry_of_skalitz]

Satoshi Nakamoto would be happy seeing bitcoin today because it means that his work has come to fruition after so many years. If I were satoshi nakamoto is I would also be happy to see my work is a success and I also think it is also a failure since some people are using it for illegal activities such as money laundering and other illegal things that bitcoin can be used for. In short, my answer is both yes it's a success and failure at the same time.

I wouldn't think it is his fault to be used in such as a way, as he didn't intend it that way - loopholes would be found in anything, good or bad.

[osasshem]

It will depend on what the context of failure means... For me, I will say he is very much okay with what Bitcoin has turned out to become. Bitcoin over the years has moved from one level to a higher one, breaking and making new highs.

Though it is created to be decentralized to its users, but the way things has turned out to be, we know that everyone is not a tech gig, and the need to bridge that gap between these sets of people is the presence of CEX, and those who are good with DEX still use it.

He created a source of financial freedom to those who can harness its possibilities, and placed the governmental bodies in a position they can't just take full control or knock it down.

[arwin100]

Satoshi Nakamoto would be happy seeing bitcoin today because it means that his work has come to fruition after so many years. If I were satoshi nakamoto is I would also be happy to see my work is a success and I also think it is also a failure since some people are using it for illegal activities such as money laundering and other illegal things that bitcoin can be used for. In short, my answer is both yes it's a success and failure at the same time.

I wouldn't think it is his fault to be used in such as a way, as he didn't intend it that way - loopholes would be found in anything, good or bad.

This situation is likely gonna happen although Satoshi don't intent to make his creation to be used for illegal things but we can't avoid to make this thing to happen. Fiat is also been used for many illegal things and criminals would gonna use everything just to get or take advantage on the crimes they have done to humanity.

This kind of situation is been a less concerned now since authorities have done lots of counter action to combat illegalities like money laundering or any crime related to it.

So for sure Satoshi would focus on its growth and provably that he would became more happier especially that he saw that his creation is huge success and been well adapted by people globally.

[Pablo-wood]

A failure? I think, yes. The reason for this is pretty obvious. Bitcoin turned into a playground for "Wall Street" after the approval of spot ETFs. It's now deeply integrated into the centralized financial system. Satoshi created BTC as a response against the inherent failures of the centralized financial system (the Great Financial Crisis of 2008).

The fact Wall Street is involved doesn't automatically mean bitcoin failed. It is a prove that bitcoin is resilient and can be fully integrated into global economy while it still maintains its censorship resistance at the protocol level.

Unfortunately, greed has led us to the point where we are right now. The vast majority of people don't care about decentralization as long as their pockets are filled with money. Not only Bitcoin turned into a failure by being unable to separate itself from banks and "Wall Street", but also by being unable to scale towards the masses. On-chain scalability is limited as we speak. I recall Satoshi saying at some point that "Bitcoin could already scale much larger than Visa with existing hardware at a fraction of the cost. It never really hits a scale ceiling". And what do we get? A centralized off-chain scaling solution (L2) called "The Lightning Network" that's full of flaws/bugs. I don't want to spread any FUD. But the facts are the facts. At least, Bitcoin is open source. Maybe there's hope after all?

We won't force people into decentralization. We live in a free world where everyone is free to decide how they prefer to transact in our current economy. For some, control over their assets means less, and for some, it means everything. But this doesn’t prove Bitcoin is a failed project.

Bitcoin was never about guaranteeing mass adoption or forcing everyone into one system, it was about giving people the choice to opt out of traditional finance if they want to. The fact that many people still chase profits through Wall Street instruments doesn’t invalidate Bitcoin’s core properties which are:

• censorship resistance
• transparency
• self-custody

[khiholangkang]

A failure? I think, yes. The reason for this is pretty obvious. Bitcoin turned into a playground for "Wall Street" after the approval of spot ETFs. It's now deeply integrated into the centralized financial system. Satoshi created BTC as a response against the inherent failures of the centralized financial system (the Great Financial Crisis of 2008).

The fact Wall Street is involved doesn't automatically mean bitcoin failed. It is a prove that bitcoin is resilient and can be fully integrated into global economy while it still maintains its censorship resistance at the protocol level.

If we look at it from a different perspective, it does appear to have failed because it didn't align with Satoshi's vision. But honestly, he couldn't have predicted how big it would become and how it would impact Wall Street and even the entire world. Bitcoin became a trading commodity, no longer just about conquering FIAT. This is a form of resistance from banks, diverting our focus from investment, instead of focusing on the freedom and independence "without third parties" that Satoshi intended.

Unfortunately, greed has led us to the point where we are right now. The vast majority of people don't care about decentralization as long as their pockets are filled with money. Not only Bitcoin turned into a failure by being unable to separate itself from banks and "Wall Street", but also by being unable to scale towards the masses. On-chain scalability is limited as we speak. I recall Satoshi saying at some point that "Bitcoin could already scale much larger than Visa with existing hardware at a fraction of the cost. It never really hits a scale ceiling". And what do we get? A centralized off-chain scaling solution (L2) called "The Lightning Network" that's full of flaws/bugs. I don't want to spread any FUD. But the facts are the facts. At least, Bitcoin is open source. Maybe there's hope after all?

We won't force people into decentralization. We live in a free world where everyone is free to decide how they prefer to transact in our current economy. For some, control over their assets means less, and for some, it means everything. But this doesn’t prove Bitcoin is a failed project.

Bitcoin was never about guaranteeing mass adoption or forcing everyone into one system, it was about giving people the choice to opt out of traditional finance if they want to. The fact that many people still chase profits through Wall Street instruments doesn’t invalidate Bitcoin’s core properties which are:

• censorship resistance
• transparency
• self-custody

From that perspective, as long as Bitcoin remains decentralized and transparent and not controlled by any single party, it remains the bitcoin Satoshi created.

It's just that there's currently a lot of interference, and it seems we're in a transition where Bitcoin is being used as a commodity for trading and investment.

[melinoe]

From that perspective, as long as Bitcoin remains decentralized and transparent and not controlled by any single party, it remains the bitcoin Satoshi created.

It's just that there's currently a lot of interference, and it seems we're in a transition where Bitcoin is being used as a commodity for trading and investment.

Better to think about the transition to the adoption of BTC as the real alternative to fiat, instead of it being an asset by the people..

[OsaiEmma]

I don’t think he’s happy, considering he hasn’t touched his Bitcoin in about 15 years. Reports say he holds around 1 million BTC, so why isn’t he spending any of it? Maybe he’s just waiting for the day he surpasses Warren Buffett, like some news outlets have speculated.

This is a poor take in my opinion, not selling doesn’t mean he is not happy with it, he might have actually leave off is bitcoin just to support the network more, do you know what FUD it will create that Satoshi move his coin out? Talk more of selling or taking anything like profit? That’s simply someone not believing totally in his own innovation, best he will do is to use it for peer to peer exchange he will never moved it to any currency.

Further more it is wrong to even think that Satoshi would want to overtake anyone in terms of wealth, if Satoshi was about this he would made more bitcoin to his name through mining more or through a mechanism that still gives him more, which today would have entirely killed bitcoin

How do you know so much about what Satoshi wants, heck that name might not even be a real name, but in any case, I think as far as BTC whitepaper goes, which is the safest way to tell what he wants, BTC has been successful so far and have achieved what it was meant for, a trustless based transaction so yeah he was successful, after all he made it so it will be successful, but I think he would be(is) super proud of how BTC have gone so far, I mean if you were the owner of BTC, won't you be proud

[Nathrixxx]

So the question is, do you think Satoshi would be happy with where Bitcoin is now? yes, it’s valuable, but the original goal doesn’t seem fully achieved.

Satoshi cannot be seeing bitcoin with the way it is today and not be happy about it, because even himself never thought of seeing it's achievement coming to this extent, nothing is bad concerning bitcoin and we don't have it useless or unacceptable, we can use it as a digital currency, store of value, investment asset and also a legal tender, while we shouldn't be more concerned about other countries yet to permit the use of bitcoin for any reason, time will tell on everything because bitcoin will continue to increase in value furthermore.

[Zaguru12]

How do you know so much about what Satoshi wants, heck that name might not even be a real name, but in any case, I think as far as BTC whitepaper goes, which is the safest way to tell what he wants, BTC has been successful so far and have achieved what it was meant for, a trustless based transaction so yeah he was successful, after all he made it so it will be successful, but I think he would be(is) super proud of how BTC have gone so far, I mean if you were the owner of BTC, won't you be proud

Same way that I or the quoted post doesn’t know what Satoshi wants or who he is or maybe an entity is the same way we should be throwing speculation around about him actually trying to overtaking someone, I think if Satoshi or the entity wants to chase personal wealth they will have actually find a mechanism to earn more bitcoin for them selves. If he actually wanted to even chase fame too he wouldn’t have sacrificed his own privacy and went on extinct just to protect his work. I think bitcoin progress is all that Satoshi looks to be after and the results already are there to make him proud.

But for now even though we don’t know Satoshi plans we shouldn’t be worried about him selling because him selling is simply saying he doesn’t trusts his own innovation and is simply going back back to fiat which is something I don’t even think will happen seriously in my opinion

[Ucy]

I think Satoshi will be satisfied with Bitcoin standard or principles, which to be honest have been maintained by Bitcoin developers who seem very principled and uncompromising in that aspect. With that in place, users can continue to freely exchange bitcoins amongst themselves in peer-to-peer decentralized manner.


My initially worried was the lack of upgrades for Bitcoin that include advanced features that can handle more tasks especially the complex ones, at very low fees. But it seems there are independent projects that have been able to succeed in this regard especially with sidechains or other auxiliary systems while being decentralized and open-sourced so that we do not have to worry about radically changing the main Bitcoin Network which may break a very vital component of the system.
 
The important thing in this journey is that we are able to build a proper Bitcoin system without deviating from good ideals that help keep bitcoin valuable. . This is the direction Bitcoin is heading unlike the majority of altcoins in existence that are compromising and have little to no idea what True Crypto should be like.

[Iamgoat]

Satoshi Nakamoto would be happy seeing bitcoin today because it means that his work has come to fruition after so many years. If I were satoshi nakamoto is I would also be happy to see my work is a success and I also think it is also a failure since some people are using it for illegal activities such as money laundering and other illegal things that bitcoin can be used for. In short, my answer is both yes it's a success and failure at the same time.

I wanted to ask you on a lighter note, are you his brother? I'm only joking though, I like your name which sounds almost in the same direction with Nakomoto. The thing about this nature of questions is, it still depends on the dimension of how it is measured and answered. If you're measuring the failures or success of Bitcoin in the scale of popularity, Satoshi will be so happy with the level of popularity Bitcoin has gained over the last decade since it was launched, seeing a number of over 100 million users worldwide based on CoinLedger estimate though only 94 people are said to have own wallets holding over 10,000 worth of Bitcoin each.

The level at which Bitcoin is gently penetrating different countries at the grassroots level and the level at which it is also gently gaining weight and popularity over different countries governments is also quite applauding knowing that it is an entirely new invention in the financial technology industry, Bitcoin performance in terms of penetration can be scaled a success.

When it comes to the value of the BTC, reaching an historic ATH of 124k dollars in August 14th this month could be considered a huge success for Satoshi if he was around, I think Bitcoin would have probably performed more if he was around to influence it but in its absence the coin was still able to rise from.what used to be 0.003 dollars in March 17, 2010 to 124k dollars in August 2025 is to me, a laudable milestone.

In terms of security and privacy, I could regard those aspects as the little failures since the Bitcoin is gradually losing its initial intention as a highly secured and encrypting platform to operate, I don't think Satoshi will be so happy about how this has performed over this year and many more I will have to leave for the experts to mention.

[coolcoinz]

I think that he'd be positively surprised what price it has reached and that it's considered a "normal" investment by most of the popular Wall Street people.

On the other hand he'd probably be negatively surprised by all the paper bitcoin out there and what Blackrock + Coinbase are doing in the US. IMO that's an attack on bitcoin, especially that Fink is now a chairman of the World Economic Forum. You know the people who say you'll own nothing and be happy. People who said they're penetrating governments

They are going to do what they can to force you to sell your BTC to them and then you'll really own nothing.

[AmoreJaz]

From that perspective, as long as Bitcoin remains decentralized and transparent and not controlled by any single party, it remains the bitcoin Satoshi created.

It's just that there's currently a lot of interference, and it seems we're in a transition where Bitcoin is being used as a commodity for trading and investment.

Better to think about the transition to the adoption of BTC as the real alternative to fiat, instead of it being an asset by the people..

Right now, it is an alternative to fiat as it is being used in the payment sector already. The hurdle is the fees involved as it varies from merchant to merchant. But when it comes to usage, it has gone a long way already. So I don't think Satoshi would call it a failure but more than likely, it is like BIG success for his invention. Who would have thought that it can fetch a staggering price of more than $112k? That's already a feat for a currency having just a more than decade of existence.

[justdimin]

Same way that I or the quoted post doesn’t know what Satoshi wants or who he is or maybe an entity is the same way we should be throwing speculation around about him actually trying to overtaking someone, I think if Satoshi or the entity wants to chase personal wealth they will have actually find a mechanism to earn more bitcoin for them selves. If he actually wanted to even chase fame too he wouldn’t have sacrificed his own privacy and went on extinct just to protect his work. I think bitcoin progress is all that Satoshi looks to be after and the results already are there to make him proud.

But for now even though we don’t know Satoshi plans we shouldn’t be worried about him selling because him selling is simply saying he doesn’t trusts his own innovation and is simply going back back to fiat which is something I don’t even think will happen seriously in my opinion

That is why it is not really that great, it's just a speculation and nothing more, so it is not really that great. We should not be really trying to assume what Satoshi would have wanted, without even knowing who satoshi is. Even if we have what he is written, trying to come up with what he would have said today on any subject, based on his talks 15+ years ago, makes no sense.

Plus, 15+ years is a lot of time to change, I am not the same guy that I was 15 years ago, and I am not sure if Satoshi is still alive, or even still one person. But in any case, even if he is just one person and still alive, he may not be the same person that wrote all those. So, I am pretty sure we have absolutely no reason to believe we can ever possibly know what he wants.