Why Satoshi's coins will never hit the market

[Cassius]

Each wallet can have several receiving addresses. And I'm pretty sure you don't need a new private key for that.

Really? How do you get 2 addresses from 1 key? And we're talking about 20000 addresses here, untouched since they were mined.

[ElectricMucus]

Each wallet can have several receiving addresses. And I'm pretty sure you don't need a new private key for that.

Really? How do you get 2 addresses from 1 key? And we're talking about 20000 addresses here, untouched since they were mined.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_Bitcoin_addresses

A Bitcoin address is a 160-bit hash of the public portion of a public/private ECDSA keypair. Using public-key cryptography, you can "sign" data with your private key and anyone who knows your public key can verify that the signature is valid.

So you just have a different public key with the same private key.



But the technical detail doesn't even really matter here, everybody who used bitcoin-qt knows you can generate new addresses and receive transactions to them for the same wallet.

[OnkelPaul]

So you just have a different public key with the same private key.

That's not how it works.
A public key is computed from the private key. There can not be two different public keys for one private key.
The other direction is possible (multiple private keys can have public keys that hash to the same bitcoin address) but so extremely unlikely that the probability can safely be ignored.

Onkel Paul

[Cassius]

Each wallet can have several receiving addresses. And I'm pretty sure you don't need a new private key for that.

Really? How do you get 2 addresses from 1 key? And we're talking about 20000 addresses here, untouched since they were mined.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_Bitcoin_addresses

A Bitcoin address is a 160-bit hash of the public portion of a public/private ECDSA keypair. Using public-key cryptography, you can "sign" data with your private key and anyone who knows your public key can verify that the signature is valid.

So you just have a different public key with the same private key.

It doesn't work like that to my knowledge. Privkey -> pubkey -> address, 1:1:1. The wiki suggests this too, surely.
Perhaps he has a wallet with 20000 addresses, or rather a series of wallets as he'd be running it on many computers.

[xDan]

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That's possible, of course. But it's interesting they haven't moved since. It's speculation, but Occam's Razor suggests it's more likely than the alternative. Remember, the coins were literally worthless then, and bitcoin was still an experiment in its infancy.

when making complex software, my default is to log absolutely every minor detail to log files, for debugging. I can't imagine not logging the private keys.

he also specifically stated in early communications something to the effect "it might be wise to hold on to a few in case value increases".

Mining is supposed to provide value to the miner. This is key to the entire Bitcoin thing.

So I think he was aware of the potential. I think it's entirely possible he didn't keep the keys, all the same. But whether he did or didn't I'm sure it wasn't anything other than a deliberate decision.

[Cassius]

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That's possible, of course. But it's interesting they haven't moved since. It's speculation, but Occam's Razor suggests it's more likely than the alternative. Remember, the coins were literally worthless then, and bitcoin was still an experiment in its infancy.

when making complex software, my default is to log absolutely every minor detail to log files, for debugging. I can't imagine not logging the private keys.

he also specifically stated in early communications something to the effect "it might be wise to hold on to a few in case value increases".

Mining is supposed to provide value to the miner. This is key to the entire Bitcoin thing.

So I think he was aware of the potential. I think it's entirely possible he didn't keep the keys, all the same. But whether he did or didn't I'm sure it wasn't anything other than a deliberate decision.

This is essentially my view

[ElectricMucus]

So you just have a different public key with the same private key.

That's not how it works.
A public key is computed from the private key. There can not be two different public keys for one private key.
The other direction is possible (multiple private keys can have public keys that hash to the same bitcoin address) but so extremely unlikely that the probability can safely be ignored.

Onkel Paul

I don't really know all that much about ECDSA and co, but if that's true bitcoin-qt generates new private key/public key pairs on it's own every block when mining.

[Cassius]

So you just have a different public key with the same private key.

That's not how it works.
A public key is computed from the private key. There can not be two different public keys for one private key.
The other direction is possible (multiple private keys can have public keys that hash to the same bitcoin address) but so extremely unlikely that the probability can safely be ignored.

Onkel Paul

I don't really know all that much about ECDSA and co, but if that's true bitcoin-qt generates new private key/public key pairs on it's own every block when mining.

Yes, this is my understanding. I think we are talking cross purposes.

Edit: there's some ambiguity in the article that I'll fix, I suspect this has caused the problem. Point stands: he had to have the keys to create the addresses, but I'm not convinced he still has every single one.
It's speculation. A discussion starter. With some interesting evidence from the blockchain for his habits. Take it as you will.

[xDan]

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This is essentially my view

That he was aware of the potential - but still decided he couldn't be bothered?

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Maybe buying back later...? That's certainly a route to lesser riches but much increased anonymity when cashing in.

[sgk]

The whole article hangs on a single assumption:

"Did he keep the private keys to every single one of those 20,000? Unlikely. Why go to the trouble for something that was worthless?"

Wow..   so Satoshi was intelligent enough to have invented Bitcoin, but was dumb enough to not save his private keys.

[Cassius]

...

This is essentially my view

That he was aware of the potential - but still decided he couldn't be bothered?

...

Maybe buying back later...? That's certainly a route to lesser riches but much increased anonymity when cashing in.

Smart enough to know you only need so much money, and when it's wise to stop? Yes, absolutely. That seems entirely in character. Hence also stepping back when he did.

[ElectricMucus]

So you just have a different public key with the same private key.

That's not how it works.
A public key is computed from the private key. There can not be two different public keys for one private key.
The other direction is possible (multiple private keys can have public keys that hash to the same bitcoin address) but so extremely unlikely that the probability can safely be ignored.

Onkel Paul

I don't really know all that much about ECDSA and co, but if that's true bitcoin-qt generates new private key/public key pairs on it's own every block when mining.

Yes, this is my understanding. I think we are talking cross purposes.

Edit: there's some ambiguity in the article that I'll fix, I suspect this has caused the problem. Point stands: he had to have the keys to create the addresses, but I'm not convinced he still has every single one.
It's speculation. A discussion starter. With some interesting evidence from the blockchain for his habits. Take it as you will.

As far as we know that would have happened automatically, which still would make that article sort of pointless.

[Cassius]

No, because what people deliberately choose not to do can be as informative as what they choose to do. But I won't labour the point any further if you're not interested.

[gentlemand]

If Satoshi was clever enough to invent Bitcoin, I also believe with all my heart that his intelligence stretched to, like, writing stuff down too.

[Cassius]

If Satoshi was clever enough to invent Bitcoin, I also believe with all my heart that his intelligence stretched to, like, writing stuff down too.

Face. Palm. Not the point here.

[ElectricMucus]

No, because what people deliberately choose not to do can be as informative as what they choose to do. But I won't labour the point any further if you're not interested.

what?

[bri912678]

If Satoshi was clever enough to invent Bitcoin, I also believe with all my heart that his intelligence stretched to, like, writing stuff down too.

Whoever or whatever Satoshi is must know the price would crash if those very early coins move. He was probably mining later on when others had started mining. In that case he would have plenty of bitcoins that were untraceable to spend without the need to touch the earliest coins he mined. Why would he crash the price moving his earliest mined coins if it devalues his coins he mined later?

[futureofbitcoin]

I don't get that mentality. Why would the price crash because satoshi is using his bitcoins?

[bri912678]

I don't get that mentality. Why would the price crash because satoshi is using his bitcoins?

He was the first miner and it's estimated he must have mined between half a million to one and a half million bitcoins. If he chose to dump them he could clear out all the buy orders on every exchange in an instant. Look at the damage the bear whale did by dumping a tiny fraction of the coins Satoshi mined.

[dinofelis]

Article looks like bullshit based off nothing but speculation to me. There's nothing that offers proof or backs up their claims at all. Nobody knows what happened to satoshi, his coins, or even if he is one or more people.

It is very simple to look that up.  Look at the first 20 000 blocks on blockchain.info.
There you will see Satoshi's addresses and their contents (indeed mostly 50 coins).

Block 0 (genesis block): address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

It has received some dust (and now has 65 coins in it) but never spend anything

Block 1 (first block) after genesis block: address 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX

It has received much less dust and now contains 50.025 coins, never spend anything

Block 2 : address: 1HLoD9E4SDFFPDiYfNYnkBLQ85Y51J3Zb1 and contains 50.00038429 BTC

and so on.

Block 10000: address 1JoiKZz2QRd47ARtcYgvgxC9jhnre9aphv, still contains the 50 BTC and no dust.

Block 15000: address 1KzP9ideELyDMyjg4svrheub7Ttg6W2cdk still contains the 50 BTC.

Block 20000: address 1Gtj5h1u8yZJe32neQZB5C7efP9XeMd9SW still contains the 50 BTC.

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In fact, I wonder whether the idea is simply not that instead of a total amount of bitcoin of 21 million something, to have exactly 20 million.  If you subtract the early coins that don't seem to move, it seems to turn out to be about that.