Let's say satoshi is cashing out 1million BTC

[Eastfist]

Every bitcoin up to the first transaction to Hal Finney belongs to Satoshi.

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[minerpumpkin]

Well, you see scammers disappearing with coins everyday. If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

[fiddelingones]

Well, you see scammers disappearing with coins everyday. If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

Exactly this. When you stop selling BTC for fiat and instead use it to buy products from brick and mortar stores, you are no longer devaluing bitcoin, instead, you are helping it grow, distributing it more, nad make it more viable as an everyday currency. This is what he would have wanted.

[Amph]

But are you sure we know ALL of Satoshi's addresses?

If Satoshi was still mining in 2011 like any other 500+ people mining at that time, how would we know?

A total of 2,650,000 coins were mined in 2011. So Satoshi might be having around 5,300 coins from 2011 (considering the median scenario). It will represent just a small fraction of the coins which he mined during 2009, and so we can ignore them. But proof seems to indicate that he gave up mining in 2009 itself.

I always suspected him to have some coins we can't trace back to him. Of course we know about the first blocks that have been mined by him, but what about the blocks that have been mined in the following years? He could very well have mine them in the pool.

there were no pool at launch , he mined in solo for sure, with diff at 1 was easy to generate block without effort, even on a not powerful cpu, but my question is why he mined 1M coin or more, if it was for testing he could have stopepd at 1000 or less, there was no need to mine that much...

[1K]

If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

[imamanandyou]

If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

Wouldnt that require knowledge of the store's wallets? As far as I know, many of the brick and mortar businesses simply use one of those bitcoin readers that automatically transfers the bitcoin based on a customers wallet.

[Bit_Happy]

start a somewhat shady exchange like btc-e, and put your own coins on the orderbooks.

Let's ask btc-e.com and maybe they will confess to being Satoshi!
Who's with me? If several of us ask, it will have more of an impact. 

[minerpumpkin]

Exactly this. When you stop selling BTC for fiat and instead use it to buy products from brick and mortar stores, you are no longer devaluing bitcoin, instead, you are helping it grow, distributing it more, nad make it more viable as an everyday currency. This is what he would have wanted.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

Yeah, I agree that Satoshi would have wanted people to spend Bitcoins in stores and use it for legitimate purchases and trades, but if Satoshi himself started to sell some of his early-mined coins, people would sure freak out, yes. This would prove that he still has access to a ton of coins.

[ensurance982]

If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

Wouldnt that require knowledge of the store's wallets? As far as I know, many of the brick and mortar businesses simply use one of those bitcoin readers that automatically transfers the bitcoin based on a customers wallet.

Huh, what do you mean by "Bitcoin readers that automatically transfer the Bitcoins based on a customers wallet"!? I think many stores simply have a single address, maybe have the QR code for that address printed out so they can show it to the customer, who can then send the coins with his/her mobile phone. Online shops of course have to use changing receiving addresses, otherwise they couldn't successfully discern between different customers' payments!

[Mr. Burns]

If he cashing out his bitcoin, he may exposure himself, his identity will be revealed, which he didn't like it. So I think he may never cashing out his bitcoin.

Trick question.  He already has enough money to last the rest of their lives Without even trying.

[shulio]

If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

If the coins is moved then expect bitcointalk is gonna be a mess since people will thought that satoshi is coming back here and the price might have a short rally . If he used it to buy at a stores or cash them out , the anonimity of satoshi will be reveal since it can be very easy to track on

[Mt. Gox]

So you can't possibly know if he sold them all to a trusted few.   Unless of course you are him the great satoshi. Just playing with us.

Satoshi's addresses have remained untouched, so the only way for such a trade to happen would be if he sold the actual private keys for the addresses and the buyer didn't move them immediately afterwards.

I wouldn't be so sure. The US government's powers often exceed the borders of the US.

Yes. That is true. The US government's powers extend to its vassal states, such as the UK and Germany.

You don't think it would be possible for the US government to force another country into revealing that sort of information? Remember Kim Dotcom? He was a German guy with German citizenship living in New Zealand. The FBI was even able to seize his hard drives too. And that's assuming that Satoshi isn't a US citizen living aboard. If he is, then both the IRS and the FBI would be after him.

With Germany and New Zealand, may be. What if Satoshi is actually living in Russia or Belarus? Or even in Venezuela or Bolivia? What the FBI is going to do if he is a resident of Russia?

Add the netherlands to that list
I know for a fact that the USA has a huge impact on some EU states, especially because of the huge financial power they have over them (think of import/export)
The top developer seems to know who he/she/it (Satoshi) is and claimed to have talked to it about btc 2.0.

Wasn't that an April Fools joke?

I think he is dead, so he will never cash out a satoshi again.
Anyway, changing 1 Mio BTC to fiat will end his anonymity.

Interesting, but i don't think he is dead, he said "he is not Dorian Nakamoto" in a hacker forum after Dorian Nakamoto was reported by that journalist last year.

Someone said on a hacker forum.

It's likely that the account was already hacked at that stage since he didn't sign his post with his PGP key and it was proven to be hacked just months later.

And it was posted on the P2P Foundation website. The message seems to be missing now:

http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/SatoshiNakamoto

But are you sure we know ALL of Satoshi's addresses?

If Satoshi was still mining in 2011 like any other 500+ people mining at that time, how would we know?

A total of 2,650,000 coins were mined in 2011. So Satoshi might be having around 5,300 coins from 2011 (considering the median scenario). It will represent just a small fraction of the coins which he mined during 2009, and so we can ignore them. But proof seems to indicate that he gave up mining in 2009 itself.

I always suspected him to have some coins we can't trace back to him. Of course we know about the first blocks that have been mined by him, but what about the blocks that have been mined in the following years? He could very well have mine them in the pool.

Difficulty remained constant throughout 2009. Satoshi had multiple computers mining BTC from the beginning and most of the BTC mined at the time were sent to addresses containing 50 BTC which have remained untouched since then so it's very likely that these addresses belong to Satoshi.

Well, you see scammers disappearing with coins everyday. If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

Exactly this. When you stop selling BTC for fiat and instead use it to buy products from brick and mortar stores, you are no longer devaluing bitcoin, instead, you are helping it grow, distributing it more, nad make it more viable as an everyday currency. This is what he would have wanted.

Except merchants tend to use payment processors like BitPay who do the selling for them. The selling still happens, only it's just done out of sight.

But are you sure we know ALL of Satoshi's addresses?

If Satoshi was still mining in 2011 like any other 500+ people mining at that time, how would we know?

A total of 2,650,000 coins were mined in 2011. So Satoshi might be having around 5,300 coins from 2011 (considering the median scenario). It will represent just a small fraction of the coins which he mined during 2009, and so we can ignore them. But proof seems to indicate that he gave up mining in 2009 itself.

I always suspected him to have some coins we can't trace back to him. Of course we know about the first blocks that have been mined by him, but what about the blocks that have been mined in the following years? He could very well have mine them in the pool.

there were no pool at launch , he mined in solo for sure, with diff at 1 was easy to generate block without effort, even on a not powerful cpu, but my question is why he mined 1M coin or more, if it was for testing he could have stopepd at 1000 or less, there was no need to mine that much...

If you want to keep the network going, then you have to mine. Satoshi actually could have mined 2 million bitcoins (since 144 blocks are generated per day and 50 BTC per block equals 50*144*365 = 2,000,000+ BTC) but because of the low hashpower throughout 2009, he was only able to mine 1 million BTC.

If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

Wouldnt that require knowledge of the store's wallets? As far as I know, many of the brick and mortar businesses simply use one of those bitcoin readers that automatically transfers the bitcoin based on a customers wallet.

Huh, what do you mean by "Bitcoin readers that automatically transfer the Bitcoins based on a customers wallet"!? I think many stores simply have a single address, maybe have the QR code for that address printed out so they can show it to the customer, who can then send the coins with his/her mobile phone. Online shops of course have to use changing receiving addresses, otherwise they couldn't successfully discern between different customers' payments!

Perhaps he was referring to POS terminals like Coinkite:

http://www.coinkite.com/

If he really wanted to, he would just have to wait until brick-and-mortar stores or online stores accept BTC as a form of payment and he could spend those BTC directly there, no need for selling them first.

There are already many stores online and in the real world where he could spend his coins. Regardless of that though people would go crazy as soon as the coins moved anywhere and would spend a lot of time trying to trace them. They then likely would be able to be traced to the stores he used them at.

If the coins is moved then expect bitcointalk is gonna be a mess since people will thought that satoshi is coming back here and the price might have a short rally . If he used it to buy at a stores or cash them out , the anonimity of satoshi will be reveal since it can be very easy to track on

I disagree. If news gets out that Satoshi is moving his coins then I predict the price would drop. Why? Because it means that Satoshi could be preparing to sell his coins.

[Troonetpt]

it can't destroy bitcoin, but the price will collapse more than 1 time, but it will finally recovery it, i believe that.

[Mt. Gox]

It's funny that one of the most favourite topic of newbies is the satoshi stash.

In reality he couldn't really sell it anywhere near the market price, as soon as those coins would move the markets would crash immediately.

it can't destroy bitcoin, but the price will collapse more than 1 time, but it will finally recovery it, i believe that.

Here's an interesting thread about this very topic:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=504149

If Satoshi chooses to dump his coins (and all of them), the price would be brought down to the single digits for a while but it wouldn't go to $0 except perhaps momentarily depending on the depth of the orderbook of the exchange he dumped his coins on. Across all exchanges, there are more than a million buy orders at $1 and several times more in orders above this so it's unlikely to go too low before climbing back up again.

[ranochigo]

So you can't possibly know if he sold them all to a trusted few.   Unless of course you are him the great satoshi. Just playing with us.

Satoshi's addresses have remained untouched, so the only way for such a trade to happen would be if he sold the actual private keys for the addresses and the buyer didn't move them immediately afterwards.

Since most of the coins are mined using various addresses that aren't affiliated with one another, there would be no way to prove that they belong to satoshi or others. There were no evidence that satoshi stopped mining right after 2009 and he could have mined throughout the years using other addresses. Satoshi has also made a transaction to hal finney so the addresses were not all untouched.

[Lorenzo]

Since most of the coins are mined using various addresses that aren't affiliated with one another, there would be no way to prove that they belong to satoshi or others. There were no evidence that satoshi stopped mining right after 2009 and he could have mined throughout the years using other addresses. Satoshi has also made a transaction to hal finney so the addresses were not all untouched.

Most early miners combined their addresses containing 50 BTC into a few large addresses. To my knowledge, that transaction to Hal Finney was the only address which Satoshi didn't leave untouched.

Satoshi's addresses also have a pattern and distinct characteristics which separates them from other addresses:

Disclaimer: I can’t assure with 100% certainty that the all the black dots are owned by Satoshi, but almost all are owned by a single entity, and that entity began mining right from block 1, and with the same performance as the genesis block. It can be identified by constant slope segments that occasionally restart. Also this entity is the only entity that has shown complete trust in Bitcoin, since it hasn’t spend any coins (as last as the eye can see). I estimate at eyesight that Satoshi fortune is around 1M Bitcoins, or 100M USD at current exchange rate. I’m sure there will be plenty of people that will carefully analyze the source data set and come up with the exact figure, which will be very close, but nevertheless they will scream at me again.

Link: http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-well-deserved-fortune-of-satoshi-nakamoto/

So the next thing I did is try to find the reason for such an awkward probability distribution in the LSB of the nonce. So I divided the graph into two: one for “Satoshi” coinbases and one for the remaining coinbases. To identify Satoshi coinbases I used a coarser method than the original: I just separated spent coinbases and unspent coinbases, which identifies Satoshi coins with good accuracy.

Link: http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/new-mystery-about-satoshi/

Satoshi could have chosen to continue mining past 2009/2010 by changing his habits and following what other miners were doing in order to remain undetected (i.e. by consolidating his mined coins into a few large addresses). Even so, the vast majority of his coins would have been mined during 2009 when the difficulty was 1 and he was pretty much the only person mining.

[Oscilson]

Satoshi might use his coins when his becomes smaller proportion of the existing coins and bitcoin is well accepted.

[HI-TEC99]

So you can't possibly know if he sold them all to a trusted few.   Unless of course you are him the great satoshi. Just playing with us.

Satoshi's addresses have remained untouched, so the only way for such a trade to happen would be if he sold the actual private keys for the addresses and the buyer didn't move them immediately afterwards.

Since most of the coins are mined using various addresses that aren't affiliated with one another, there would be no way to prove that they belong to satoshi or others. There were no evidence that satoshi stopped mining right after 2009 and he could have mined throughout the years using other addresses. Satoshi has also made a transaction to hal finney so the addresses were not all untouched.

Lazlo (the pizza guy) said he coded the first open source GPU miner for Bitcoin. That must have been available in 2010 and Satoshi would likely have wanted to try it out. The first people to use it were mining thousands of Bitcoins a day. At that rate it would be difficult to start a new wallet for each mined block, so Satoshi could have changed his habits and sent all his mined coins to the same wallet.

From that point on we would have no way to guess which wallets belong to Satoshi.

[Kyraishi]

I doubt Satoshi would be moving any coins at all as that will reveal his identity.
And even if he decided to do so, it wouldn't be for $250 each.