satoshi addresses

[AgentofCoin]

So then the first blocks would never move, since they can't be redeemed. But then how do people arrive at the conclusion that Satoshi would have access to any of the early bitcoins?  Maybe he just created it and never mined at all.

No, only the first block ("genesis block") is programmed as unspendable, all others can be used.

It is assumed that many blocks after the first was solo mined by Satoshi up to a point.
It is assumed that as many as 10 different people downloaded the program and actually mined early blocks with Satoshi.
It is assumed that Satoshi amassed as much as an estimated 1,000,000 bitcoins.
It is assumed that these "Satoshi mined bitcoins" will never move, due to the potential to destroy the experiment/goal.

[Drewski]

Well, it seems a fairly obvious thing to avoid if you're wanting to remain anonymous.  That would be the first place anybody who's trying to figure out who Satoshi is would look (and keep and eye on).  Side question, what is the ultimate goal?  Or is the goal just for bitcoin to survive?

[AgentofCoin]

Well, it seems a fairly obvious thing to avoid if you're wanting to remain anonymous.  That would be the first place anybody who's trying to figure out who Satoshi is would look (and keep and eye on).  Side question, what is the ultimate goal?  Or is the goal just for bitcoin to survive?

The goal is different depending on who you ask.
The original experiment/goal (IMO) is not to force it to survive, but to see if it can/will survive on its own.

[DannyHamilton]

- snip -
Side question, what is the ultimate goal?
- snip -

Well, according to the original Bitcoin Whitepaper, it appears that the goal is:

. . .an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third  party. . .

So then the first blocks would never move, since they can't be redeemed. But then how do people arrive at the conclusion that Satoshi would have access to any of the early bitcoins?  Maybe he just created it and never mined at all.

The bitcoins generated in the block reward from the very first block (the genesis block) are not spendable.  This is either due to a bug in the original reference client or was an intentional decision made by Satoshi.  It isn't clear whether it was a mistake or not. It is known that these bitcoins are not spendable because those of us that are capable of reading and understanding the software can tell.

Note that this exception only applies to the block reward. Any other bitcoins that are sent to that same public key are still spendable.

I'm a bit confused.  How was the first block mined?  Isn't mining the process of confirming transactions?

No.

Mining is the process of creating a block header that results in a double-sha256 hash value that is lower than the current difficulty target.  If the solo miner (or mining pool operator) chooses to include any transactions in the block before they build the header, then those transactions are considered to have their first confirmation if the miner succeeds in finding a valid header.

Therefore, if there's no transactions, there can't be a way to mine.  So how did the first one come into existence?

Every block always has at least 1 transaction.  This transaction is typically called the "generation" transaction (or "coinbase" transaction) and is the transaction that the solo miner (or mining pool) uses to pay the block reward.

[7788bitcoin]

We can only guess which addresses belong to him but you can't be 100% sure.

[DimensionZ]

Is it true that if he tries to sells all his bitcoins the price will crash because there will be an influx of coins on the market?

[franky1]

Who watches his addresses??? How will we know when if/when any are moved?

in january 2009, day one of bitcoin. there was satoshi, hal finney and atleast 1 other person mining. so even if funds from day 1 moved. its still only atmost 33% chance it was satoshi.
under 33% proves nothing

withing days weeks more people mined. so the odds of an address mined on those days becomes less and less.
by december 2009 the odds were well under 5% that an address holding funds mined in december belonged to satoshi

are you sure, i was aware that at the beginning there was only satoshi, then a bunch of other joined in 2010, especially in the summer

but i doubt int he first day of mining there was another one besides satoshi

hal finney started mining block ~70 (remember approx 144 blocks mined per day), making hal there on day one
then there was the the infamous first transaction from satoshi to hal on block 170.(day 2)

theres a few other names in january 2009. such as nicholas bohm, jeff kane http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/bitcoin-list/?viewmonth=200901

we also know that theymos(sirius), mike hearne joined summer 2009,  and a few others did too..
there was even an exchange called 'newlibertystandard' involved with bitcoins in 2009..
remember this very forum started in November 2009 and had a dozen members before christmas. so that shows people were 'into bitcoin' before the forum even started because peoples first messages were not 'what is bitcoin' but questioning bugs.. so they all knew about bitcoin prior to this forum starting.

so although bitcoin was new. lots of things were happening in 2009

[Flickr]

Who watches his addresses??? How will we know when if/when any are moved?

I think Satoshi Doesnot use same bitcoin addresses. We cannot find him because we get no information from btc addresses. He Also might have his own Client and a very unique bitcoin address and he might like to remain anonymous .
He is also the founder of bitcoins so he may have many private knowledges which we donot have.
We cannot find his btc address

[justspare]

It's just a waste of time to waste your time on watching "satoshi's" addresses. There are so many leads and predictions and I don't think any of them are true.

[odolvlobo]

Who watches his addresses??? How will we know when if/when any are moved?

I think Satoshi Doesnot use same bitcoin addresses. We cannot find him because we get no information from btc addresses. He Also might have his own Client and a very unique bitcoin address and he might like to remain anonymous .
He is also the founder of bitcoins so he may have many private knowledges which we donot have.
We cannot find his btc address

Nothing that you wrote makes any sense. Please read more and post less.

[franky1]

Who watches his addresses??? How will we know when if/when any are moved?

I think Satoshi Doesnot use same bitcoin addresses. We cannot find him because we get no information from btc addresses. He Also might have his own Client and a very unique bitcoin address and he might like to remain anonymous .
He is also the founder of bitcoins so he may have many private knowledges which we donot have.
We cannot find his btc address

Nothing that you wrote makes any sense. Please read more and post less.

im guessing Flickr is next going to ellude that satoshi is using Dash (darkwallet)

[DieJohnny]

Summarizing the responses:

You can use a block explorer to find minded blocks before Satoshi left, and using the assumption that unspent blocks are mostly his you can infer his addresses...
From the earliest months most blocks were Satoshi's.
There may or may not be people that have created a hypothetical list of Satoshi addresses. But nobody seems to answer this question.

So theoretically Satoshi could easily spend some of his coins mined in the last days he was around and nobody would notice...

I haven't read anything that would indicate you can know for certain that Satoshi HASN'T already spent some of his coins.

[franky1]

Summarizing the responses:

You can use a block explorer to find minded blocks before Satoshi left, and using the assumption that unspent blocks are mostly his you can infer his addresses...
From the earliest months most blocks were Satoshi's.
There may or may not be people that have created a hypothetical list of Satoshi addresses. But nobody seems to answer this question.

So theoretically Satoshi could easily spend some of his coins mined in the last days he was around and nobody would notice...

I haven't read anything that would indicate you can know for certain that Satoshi HASN'T already spent some of his coins.

wrong in so many ways so lets translate

You can use a block explorer to find mined blocks before Satoshi left, and using the assumption that unspent blocks are 5% his you can lose your mind guessing which ones...
From the earliest months most blocks were not Satoshi's. hal finney, sirius, theymos, mike hern and dozen others were all there in 2009. some were there on day one..

so although we can watch these old 2009 addresses, and if they moved be less than 5% sure who moved it.. theoretically Satoshi could instead easily spend some of his coins mined in the last days of 2010-2011 when he was around and nobody would notice because the pool of people using bitcoin was hundreds, bring the odds down to way below 1%...

I haven't read anything that would indicate you can know for certain that Satoshi HASN'T already spent some of his coins.

[mobnepal]

If you see at the first address that have received firstly generated coin that is 50btc, this address can be assumed to be satoshi or inventer address. But that address seems to be not active now.

[Rubberduckie]

Im sure if anything moved from any of his known addresses there
would be 50 posts on here letting you know lol.

Im sure there a bunch of people who keep an eye out.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Who watches his addresses??? How will we know when if/when any are moved?

It's easy to know when they are moved, just look it up on blockchain.info or whatever blockchain browser of your choice. What's "funny" is, it seems the early addresses may be prone to quantum attacks (not post 2012 addresses) so even if some day the coins move, we will not know if someone made a successful quantum attack on satoshi's keys, or is satoshi him/her/itself moving coins.

Great observation.. this is huge because we can't be sure if it's him or not. The only way to know for certain is that he signs the transactions with his PGP, but at this point im not even sure if it's enough, because we can't know if it's him controlling the keys.

[QuestionAuthority]

I always believed Hal Finney was Satoshi. He wrote the whitepaper under a nom de plume to deflect the inevitable harrasment that would accompany his brainchild. He made his pseudonym "Satoshi" (a Japanese guy) to be as far removed from his real life as possible. Bitcoin, by adoption and propagation, is obviously, at least to me, an American invention. Hal Finney sent coins to himself on day one and mined a vast bulk of the original coins mined.

That's not bad news, sadly, because he's dead. If his wife is anything like my three ex-wives or my current wife then she has no idea how to really use his Bitcoins because she really doesn't involve herself in his hobbies or work. He may also have instructed her not to "kill his baby" by selling a mass of Bitcoins into a fragile economy. Being the loving wife that I'm sure she is, she would respect his wishes.

This is as reasonable a theory as any I've seen proposed on this forum. It has the side benefit of allowing everyone to sleep more peacefully because a dead mans coins are never going to move.

BTW: Satoshi Nakamoto is a very generic Japanese name. It's not quite as bad as John Smith but it's not far off either.

[quentincole32]

Who watches his addresses??? How will we know when if/when any are moved?

i dont know,and dont care about it. but somebody said like this :
You need to check each individual block, he used different addresses. For example, this is block #2: blockchain.info/block/… Note the transaction at the bottom of 50 btc. The receiving address of the btc appears to not have been touched until 2012 when some people sent it some small amount with public messages.

[Blind Legs Parker]

It is assumed that these "Satoshi mined bitcoins" will never move, due to the potential to destroy the experiment/goal.

Not if he does it in a smart way. Little by little.
I don't understand why he would mine in the first place, were it not for spending? Actually yes, I get that it might have been to strengthen the market. I'm not an economist but could it be that having these bitcoins (presently around 10% of the total amount of bitcoins) locked somewhere, unspent, could act like a regulator by preventing the market prices from falling too low?

[mezzomix]

It is assumed that these "Satoshi mined bitcoins" will never move, due to the potential to destroy the experiment/goal.

Not if he does it in a smart way. Little by little.

There is no way to move unspent generation outputs from 2009 without being noticed.