Why Satoshi's coins will never hit the market

[HarmonLi]

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.

I think he should have made something obvious like an address that consists of a string or something. That way people could be pretty sure he doesn't have control about the coins anymore. If those coins move, I bet they move into a black-hole address.

Is there a way that he could have proved that the bitcoins were really lost? Even if the address he used to send them to was just some string, wouldn't someone eventually create that address and get the coins? xD
Or are you saying that it should be something pre-programmed to have an address that can't be accessed?

You could hard-code some 0-address into the Bitcoin protocol that renders coins unspendable for example. That way people could be sure that coins were destroyed. A pretty drastic measure, though...

[johnyj]

This is not a concern

Suppose each wallet holds 100 addresses, he need to create 200 wallets to hold those coins, and he must constantly check if those 100 addresses in a wallet is used up, difficult to maintain on multiple computers (I suppose that he set up a group of computers to simulate the P2P network), highly unlikely for a coin that worth nothing at that time. (I don't even remember where is the wallet of my first alt-coin which holds at least 400+ of those alt-coins, since they worth nothing during that year)

Even if he stored all those wallets, that is 1/21 of the total bitcoin money supply, it is still much less than banks holding of fiat money: 4/5 of the whole USD supply stored at FED and the scale keeps increasing through each QE. So still much better than banks today

If bitcoin is very successful, he will be holding billions or even trillions of dollars, no need to cash out any significant amount, he will have a large reserve that can be used to stabilize bitcoin exchange rate

If bitcoin is not successful, he can't cash out that amount of coin without being caught, and that will crash the price to cents, it does not make a lot of sense either. In fact, if he really want to cash out those coins, he can do it slowly, to make sure the price keeps going up due to reward halving every 4 years

[Cconvert2G36]

While we're in the realm of wild speculation based on no evidence... I operate under the assumption that satoshi still controls the keys to each and every one of his bitcoins. There is no evidence to the contrary. 

[sgk]

1. There is no evidence that Satoshi holds his private keys.
2. There is no evidence that Satoshi has lost his private keys.
3. There is no evidence if Satoshi is dead or alive.
4. There is no evidence that Satoshi has transferred / not transferred his private keys to someone else.

In short:
There is no point discussing this at this point until further proof can be acquired.

[Mikestang]

In short:
There is no point discussing this at this point until further proof can be acquired.

Bitcoin Forum > Economy > Economics > Speculation >
 

[Mervyn_Pumpkinhead]

Pointless article, based on the hopes and guesses of an obvious bagholder.

Satoshis initial coin creation still leaves the question open if bitcoin is a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme. If Satoshi's coins would eventually be sold, then this pyramid scheme would surely turn into a ponzi.

[sgk]

In short:
There is no point discussing this at this point until further proof can be acquired.

Bitcoin Forum > Economy > Economics > Speculation >
 

Haha..  true!

I think it makes sense that we're discussing this in speculation forum.
What I don't like is how the original article claims to have found 'evidence' and then elaborates everything based on assumptions.

[Rampton]

No I'm not. You two just don't know what you're talking about nor what effect dumping a shit tonne of coins on the exchanges has on the price. It's you who doesn't understand how simple supply and demand works because you wouldn't be saying this and it has absolutely nothing to do with the 'robustness' of the system. Bitcoin will continue working fine but the price you pay for them will be significantly less.

I didn't say it wouldn't have an effect, I said using words like "catastrophic" and "disastrous" are an exaggeration and FUD.

And your reasoning and logic behind this is what exactly? You just sound ignorant when you call an opinion you disagree with 'fud'. How would dumping half a billion dollars worth of bitcoins on the market (or how ever many satoshi has) not have an effect? Do you think the price of bitcoin will still the same? No.

[Cassius]

Pointless article, based on the hopes and guesses of an obvious bagholder.

Satoshis initial coin creation still leaves the question open if bitcoin is a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme. If Satoshi's coins would eventually be sold, then this pyramid scheme would surely turn into a ponzi.

You're a known troll, so I won't take it personally. In fact I'm surprised, I thought I had you on ignore. And no, I don't hold any bags.

What I don't like is how the original article claims to have found 'evidence' and then elaborates everything based on assumptions.

You're right that 'evidence' might be too strong a word, at least in a court of law
There is information in the blockchain that proves a limited number of scenarios, one of which is not that Satoshi actively manages/managed his many coins, which we know are held in many, many addresses. We know that he must have around 20,000 private keys. Moving into assumptions and conjecture (and I'm pretty sure this is the right place for that) and educated guesswork, it seems to me possible but unlikely that he kept every one of them. Feel free to disagree, of course, but that's the most likely in my opinion.

[Mervyn_Pumpkinhead]

You're a known troll, so I won't take it personally. In fact I'm surprised, I thought I had you on ignore. And no, I don't hold any bags.

I think that currently a sober-minded person should be worried if he isn't considered to be a troll in this place. Right now, anyone who don't want to be in this echo chamber, where "if we think positive thoughts, then good things will happen!" mentality rules over reason, then he will be considered a troll.
Just like people here are being called trolls or fudsters, just because they don't find any value in your article that is based on vague assumptions, but tries hard to look like it's based on evidence.

[Cassius]

You're a known troll, so I won't take it personally. In fact I'm surprised, I thought I had you on ignore. And no, I don't hold any bags.

I think that currently a sober-minded person should be worried if he isn't considered to be a troll in this place. Right now, anyone who don't want to be in this echo chamber, where "if we think positive thoughts, then good things will happen!" mentality rules over reason, then he will be considered a troll.
Just like people here are being called trolls or fudsters, just because they don't find any value in your article that is based on vague assumptions, but tries hard to look like it's based on evidence.

I hesitate to reply at all, but...
You assume the I'm a bagholder, with zero evidence. Assumption?
I've explained what's evidence and what's entirely reasonable guesswork. We work from fact to hypothesis all the time. It's a fairly standard process for most people.
This is an area of interest for me (and many others), not something that will inform my trading, because I don't.
And courtesy costs nothing.

[Mervyn_Pumpkinhead]

I hesitate to reply at all, but...
You assume the I'm a bagholder, with zero evidence. Assumption?
I've explained what's evidence and what's entirely reasonable guesswork. We work from fact to hypothesis all the time. It's a fairly standard process for most people.
This is an area of interest for me (and many others), not something that will inform my trading, because I don't.
And courtesy costs nothing.

Yes, I assume that you're a bagholder. There's no evidence that you're a bagholder, so I'm not writing an article full of demagogy, that claims about evidence of you being a bagholder.
So, this is my final advice. Next time, if you don't want for people to see your writing as the desperate cry of a bagholder, then don't bend the meaning of words this much, with the purpose to calm the minds of those, who might be worried about the fate of these coins.

[Cassius]

No one but you has ever suggested that any of my writing is the desperate cry of a bagholder, so I'll take the advice with a pinch of salt. If you really think I believe Satoshi's stash hanging over the market like the sword of Damocles is the only factor keeping the price down, then there's not much I can say anyway.
 
For what it's worth, I put the article in the Spec subforum because I thought it would be of interest to a few people here. I maintain the conclusions are quite reasonable - and more likely than not - though I admit they do require a little imagination and empathy to reach. What I've learned from this unnecessary and unpleasant exchange is that it would have been better to put it in another section.

[SimplisticStu]

Would it be far fetched to assume that he kept hold of them as some form of insurance for the whole bitcoin network?

Let's say (the man) did muscle his way in due to the future popularity of our beloved bitcoin trying to take away from us, could Satoshi theoretically "cleanse" the whole system by using the dormant bitcoins in such a way as to set the price back to some years ago and render it useless for (the man) to keep his interest in it, leaving it once again to the people to re-build and for a new wave of early adopters?

[Enzyme]

The only way he can offload those coins is if there is an exchange with an 'Input private key' feature. If those coins relocate, Bitcoin is screwed.

[dinofelis]

It goes beyond just the early 'satoshi' blocks however.  There are about 58,000 block rewards in the first era which have never been spent.  I am just saying none of this supports a claim that he intentionally mined to unknown keys to ensure the coins were destroyed.

The point is that it would have been simple for Satoshi to make these coins provably un-spendable: send them to an OP_RETURN script, no ?

How much are 58000 keys ?  Not even 2 MB of data ?  Not so difficult to keep them I'd think.

I think a principal reason for Satoshi not to use those coins, is that the danger to give free his identity is too high.  Apparently, Satoshi, whoever it/he/she/they are, doesn't want us to know.  Any spending of those coins would be tracked down and would increase the probability for his identity to be revealed (whether it is the NSA, the KGB, some or other banking group, a group of political activists, or a lone guy or girl).

[samson]

It's trivial to keep track of 20,000 keys, any idiot could do it.

[Mikestang]

The only way he can offload those coins is if there is an exchange with an 'Input private key' feature. If those coins relocate, Bitcoin is screwed.

There are plenty of ways to introduce those coins into circulation without destroying bitcoin.  People keep assuming that, if there were to be used, they would all be dumped at once and crash the market.  Don't you think Satoshi is smart enough to know how to use the system he created without ruining it?

I don't know that they ever will move, but I hope they do.  I know they will be used for something positive, and their use will be done in such a way as to be a benefit to bitcoin, not its downfall.

[gentlemand]

Would it be far fetched to assume that he kept hold of them as some form of insurance for the whole bitcoin network?

I think that theory makes sense. Less the dumping, more the insurance against total domination of the currency.

[Cassius]

Would it be far fetched to assume that he kept hold of them as some form of insurance for the whole bitcoin network?

I think that theory makes sense. Less the dumping, more the insurance against total domination of the currency.

Even if he does have them, I'm not sure he'd agree with the centralisation that would represent. It would be anathema to everything he was trying to achieve.