Is Satoshi himself the single individual with the most power to harm Bitcoin?

[Kprawn]

Your first suggestion should never be implemented... I will never vote for that. Today they "block" Satoshi's coins, and tomorrow it's Andreas and then Roger Ver and so on and so

on...   ....This should never be allowed.

The second angle has some merit, but the chance that Satoshi would save his private key online, is less than the chance that the algorithm will be broken.  

Still a interesting discussion to debate. Thanks OP.  

[NeuroticFish]

I think that the president of PRC has a better chance to harm Bitcoin.

Please correct me if I am wrong (and I mean it, cause I am not 100% certain of this).

So, imho, if China decides to shutdown their internet or disconnect it from the rest of the world, then most Bitcoin miners will be cut off.
Until the network will adjust for that it takes quite a number of days - I don't know how it's calculated - but for some while the transactions will be VERY slow.
If this will take too long (which is a relative term) this would harm the network a lot and some may / will leave it.

Now, after the difficulty dropped this much, the Chinese have a chance that at the point their network is back to even do a 51% attack. Though unlikely since it's bad for business, this still can happen, theoretically.



Of course, I may be in a big confusion, somebody should check this theory against the possible reality.

[lumeire]

Do we even know if these early addresses are still accessible?
I mean, for all we know, a big chunk of them could be lost...

What do you think would be the community's consensus on these 'ghost' addresses? I mean, this issue may become relevant when all the btcs have been mined out.

@ontopic, No, under today's protocol he by him/herself that would be impossible.

[trace666]

I think that the president of PRC has a better chance to harm Bitcoin.

Please correct me if I am wrong (and I mean it, cause I am not 100% certain of this).

So, imho, if China decides to shutdown their internet or disconnect it from the rest of the world, then most Bitcoin miners will be cut off.
Until the network will adjust for that it takes quite a number of days - I don't know how it's calculated - but for some while the transactions will be VERY slow.
If this will take too long (which is a relative term) this would harm the network a lot and some may / will leave it.

Now, after the difficulty dropped this much, the Chinese have a chance that at the point their network is back to even do a 51% attack. Though unlikely since it's bad for business, this still can happen, theoretically.



Of course, I may be in a big confusion, somebody should check this theory against the possible reality.

Ok quick back of the envelope calculation for you. Let's assume China has 60% of global hashing power (as stated here https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/kb/which-countries-mine-export-most-bitcoins/ ).

If those 60% were to go offline at the exact same time, the remaining 40% miners would indeed take longer to confirm blocks. A block that took an average 10 min before would then take exactly 10min/0.4=25min to confirm.
This state would persist until the next difficulty change which will be an expected 7 days (or a theoretical maximum of 14 days) away. After the difficulty change, block confirmation time would be back to an average of 10min.

The impact of this scenario is therefore minor.

As to the 51% scenario, I am not sure how one actor would be able to control all of China's mining resources, even if they are backed by the government.

[Holliday]

The early mined 'untouched' bitcoins represent, to me, the biggest the potential source of damage to the entire project that can be weilded by one individual. The bigger the project becomes, the greater a liability they become.

One possible solition, to safeguard the future of Bitcoin, could be to build into the protocol a rule which prevents these early bitcoins from ever being spendable after a certain date. This gives Satoshi an opportunity to move a quantity (or all the coins) of his choosing IF he wants (or still even has the private keys) to.

Bitcoin was created to take the control of money out of the hands of people like you.

Your meddling would do far more damage to Bitcoin than satoshi spending his coins could ever do.

satoshi can only spend his coins once, meddlers would tamper with the system forever. No thanks.

[BellaBitBit]

I can't imagine that the real Satoshi would be interested in "taking down" Bitcoin because it was such an amazing creation and has such positive possibilities for the world. This Craig Wright situation only makes me hope that the real Satoshi does not come forward due to the disruption it can create to Bitcoin in general.

[XinXan]

If the price goes to 1 million I would expect bitcoin to be accepted on 99% of the shops, online and offline, if people were using bitcoins for basically everything, selling a million bitcoins at once won't do anything because people won't care about the price of bitcoin compared to dollars or any other currency.

[rienelber]

Let me be perfectly clear. I do not think Satoshi wants to harm Bitcoin.

However, as a community we need to think rationally about the greatest threats to the Bitcoin project and the best way to mitigate those potential threats. Please treat this as healthy critique to provoke discussion to make bitcoin stronger, not as an attack or proposal.

When I introduce people to Bitcoin, I'm often frustratingly told it is a pyramid scheme because the early adopter(s) own such a high share. I optimistically counter that Satoshi foresaw this and mined as many early bitcoins as he could without the intention of spending them to protect the future integrity from such an unequal wealth distribution.

While I have my doubts about the latest 'unveiling' of Satoshi - it has made me acutely aware we have still no idea who owns these early mined coins, nor their intentions. These untouched coins, if ever they became active, could have huge potential to create instability and damage to Bitcoin. An individual's personal circumstances and motivations can change unpredicatably, people can be put under duress. For example if somebody found out you were Satoshi and threatened harm to you or your family unless you did everything in your power to destroy the bitcoin project, wouldn't you?

The early mined 'untouched' bitcoins represent, to me, the biggest the potential source of damage to the entire project that can be weilded by one individual. The bigger the project becomes, the greater a liability they become.

One possible solition, to safeguard the future of Bitcoin, could be to build into the protocol a rule which prevents these early bitcoins from ever being spendable after a certain date. This gives Satoshi an opportunity to move a quantity (or all the coins) of his choosing IF he wants (or still even has the private keys) to.

That way, the potential weakness is resolved now, rather than a cloud which hangs over the project and potentially threatens it indefinitely.

I do not think Satoshi will act against the best interests of the project, but if there is a risk, no matter how small, I think we have to consider the options to make Bitcoin as succesful as it possibly can be.

I think nobody, not even Satoshi, might be a harm to bitcoin system.

[Amph]

If the price goes to 1 million I would expect bitcoin to be accepted on 99% of the shops, online and offline, if people were using bitcoins for basically everything, selling a million bitcoins at once won't do anything because people won't care about the price of bitcoin compared to dollars or any other currency.

at that point, my question would be why selling it, if it is accepted everywhere? satoshi would simply use it to buy stuff, and then those that acquire those coins would use them to buy other stuff and so on

there will be no more dumping ever

[Mickeyb]

What could he do except selling his stake? Even if he sold his stake, he would just make another perfect distribution that everyone would kill for. He wouldn't destroy Bitcoin at all in my opinion.

Maybe he waits that Bitcoin gets huge and then he will start selling, who knows.

[ajareselde]

If the price goes to 1 million I would expect bitcoin to be accepted on 99% of the shops, online and offline, if people were using bitcoins for basically everything, selling a million bitcoins at once won't do anything because people won't care about the price of bitcoin compared to dollars or any other currency.

at that point, my question would be why selling it, if it is accepted everywhere? satoshi would simply use it to buy stuff, and then those that acquire those coins would use them to buy other stuff and so on

there will be no more dumping ever

Exactly, there would be no point to sell it as it would actually bring you loss, regardless of the price. The only time Satoshi (or anyone with huge stack of coins for that matter) would
profit longterm in selling is on the top of the bubbles that will come along the way to mass adoption. Even then, the ultimate result would still be in favor of bitcoin, as he would once
again re-buy after the bubble. Point of the story is that there's certain amount of coins at each point in time, and it doesn't really matter who's holding them, or what the temp price is.

cheers

[Graphics]

He has the power to, but that doesnt mean that he is going to do that.

Why would he? He is the founder of BTC. He loves it.

[ShrykeZ]

From an article that i read today i saw that satoshi has somewhere more than 1 million bitcoins which worth ~half billion dollar so he has big power to manipulate the price or anything else.

It's been calculated to be a lot less than this, because some coins were lost during a private key system update.

[pereira4]

I dont see what harm he could do. He can only dump those coins and make cheaper for us non early adopters to buy more. Bitcoin is revolution of money and even if he really want to harm Bitcoin manipulating price, he cant do that in long run. In my opinion, it would be lot better if that dump happen than it stays unknown if he have that keys (or even if he is still alive). We had year of low price and Bitcoin survived, i bet bitcoin would survive even lower price and longer period of that no sweat.

Let's do a thought experiment.

15 years from now, Bitcoins and US dollar are the world's two biggest currencies. Bitcoins are worth $1m each and used day to day by approximately 30% of the world's population.

Out of the blue, Satoshi's original bitcoins start being moved en mass to bitcoin laundries.

What are the economic implications?

Potentially catastrophic I would imagine.

By then satoshi wouldn't make any profits by dumping 1 million coins into the market, and anything less wouldn't have any impact anyway since the marketcap would be on the trillions and the coins would be absorbed seamlessly. This is not really an issue. Even if it got dumped today, it would just mean the coins get redistributed among more people, the technology will keep making progress with or without dump.

[junglist.massive]

he have no possibility to do anything with bitcoin. Worst thing that he can do is sell all his coins

[mtnsaa]

I don't think himself can do any harm, but the news regarding his identity and how all will come to light can definitely affect Bitcoin, both for good and bad. I'm inclined to think that there may be some dark stories if the identity is revealed and so the price will take a hit I guess but with Bitcoin you never know.

[lolgato]

Satoshi can literally move the entire price but I don't think he will want to willingly do that so I don't think he would hurt bitcoins but there's always the chance.

[TERA]

Who is going to wire Satoshi billions of dollars?  Bitstamp?

[Rabber]

Let's say hypothetically Bitcoin does get massive and is traded all over the world and the market cap reaches into the trillions. It is possible there could be some way to identify which addresses belong to the poorest bitcoin users by analyzing their activity or some other method. Maybe a long term goal could be using those million coins (if he does have that many and still has the keys) to redistribute wealth to the poorest by spreading the coins among those addresses. I recall reading something about the Africa being a possible market for bitcoin.

[nichu]

I dont see what harm he could do. He can only dump those coins and make cheaper for us non early adopters to buy more. Bitcoin is revolution of money and even if he really want to harm Bitcoin manipulating price, he cant do that in long run. In my opinion, it would be lot better if that dump happen than it stays unknown if he have that keys (or even if he is still alive). We had year of low price and Bitcoin survived, i bet bitcoin would survive even lower price and longer period of that no sweat.

Let's do a thought experiment.

15 years from now, Bitcoins and US dollar are the world's two biggest currencies. Bitcoins are worth $1m each and used day to day by approximately 30% of the world's population.

Out of the blue, Satoshi's original bitcoins start being moved en mass to bitcoin laundries.

What are the economic implications?

Potentially catastrophic I would imagine.

at 1M per coin , with around 21M(but probably much less, around 18M) the market cap would be 18T with a much better stability than what we have now, so this mean that demand is fucking crazy at that point

even in the case that the market will not hold a dump of 1/18 the worst case would still put us in good range of value, that will recover quickly

but besides this why he should kill his own fortune like this? i mean if he really want to sell he will do it slowly, not in one single volley, that would be really stupid

i agree to your point. this is the best case scenario. if he wants to cash in he would sell it slowly.