Who owns Bitcoin?

[Superbitzz]

i dont think there is any legal owner of bitcoin nobody controls it not any person or any government . It is equal for all of us thats why we all love it

yes that is a fact i also think that no one can claim that he is the owner of bitcoin. i think that is a universal currency and it belong to every one. a person is the owner of bitcoin what he has. so bitcoin is a universal currency and every one has the equal right to keep it or to use it as he wish.

[Bitcotalk]

No one is the owner of bitcoin as a single owner, but it is a currency for which we all are the owners who have them in their wallets, only those are not the owners who do not have that currency in their wallets.

[patronis]

From a perspective of someone living in the U.S. The bitcoins or fraction of bitcoin you own are yours.  You can do whatever you want with it as long as what you're buying/selling is not illegal.

It is the same as U.S. fiat: you can take a dollar and light it on fire, and it is legal (as long as you don't cause a forest fire). 

So far, in the U.S., it is mostly legal to buy and invest (check with state laws first).  When it comes to selling, however, it becomes a gray area in a couple of ways:

1)  How is it taxed? I believe any profit is taxed as capital gains.  But what if you trade bitcoins for a living?  Do you have to then pay income tax?

2)  What kind of licensing do you need?  MSB, MTL?  None?  Based on my own forum reading on trading sites, it seems as though there is no clear answer.  Traders are currently on the bleeding edge of owning to selling, then back to owning and back to selling, and on and on. 

I think pending and future litigation will determine who owns bitcoin, and after you've owned and either spent or resold, what kind of taxes can be levied on it.

Whoa I wouldn't have even thought of those scenarios, simplest answer is that since there's no regulation then nothing is held over you. There are cons to having no regulation though, if you need something to do with credit then you can't up and say "I'm a BTC seller" because companies just want info and history to know you'll pay them back. I think that by the time there is enough regulation for America to tax BTC that those that are taking advantage of scenario 1 will find another way though. There are always loopholes.

[abugseuf]

No one is the owner of bitcoin as a single owner, but it is a currency for which we all are the owners who have them in their wallets, only those are not the owners who do not have that currency in their wallets.

yes that is the fact and every one has the right to use the bitcoin according to their own wishes. if he really want to use it or to save it and hold for the price increase. so i every one is free to decide what he really want to do.

[zodin]

No one is the owner of bitcoin as a single owner, but it is a currency for which we all are the owners who have them in their wallets, only those are not the owners who do not have that currency in their wallets.

yes that is the fact and every one has the right to use the bitcoin according to their own wishes. if he really want to use it or to save it and hold for the price increase. so i every one is free to decide what he really want to do.

yes i am agree with you i think there is no single bitcoin owner. all bitcoin are not the property of a single person. but a person is the owner of such bitcoin which he is holding.

[Barbut]

I have some coins, you have some coins, they have some coins... Looks like everyone owns a little parts of bitcoin. And with simple words miner's are holding everything together. Like someone said above you need to own your private key's and only then you are true owner of your coins.
Bitcoin is still decentralized, and as long its like that people across the world owns bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto made this for all of us, and nobody can say will it change one day. People talk about it and you can fins some interesting comments here about it, but for now nothing is for sure. We can make prediction's, and wild guesses but only time will tell what will happen.

[Cresciuanto]

I have some coins, you have some coins, they have some coins... Looks like everyone owns a little parts of bitcoin. And with simple words miner's are holding everything together. Like someone said above you need to own your private key's and only then you are true owner of your coins.
Bitcoin is still decentralized, and as long its like that people across the world owns bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto made this for all of us, and nobody can say will it change one day. People talk about it and you can fins some interesting comments here about it, but for now nothing is for sure. We can make prediction's, and wild guesses but only time will tell what will happen.

interesting some people think about bitcoin that it is the property of satoshi who invented it but i think that no now it is no longer remain his property and now it is the property of those who have it.

[youhgt2]

there is not a single owner of bitcoin. i think the one who has the bitocn he is the owner of his bitcoin.

[Maesters1-]

No one is the owner of bitcoin as a single owner, but it is a currency for which we all are the owners who have them in their wallets, only those are not the owners who do not have that currency in their wallets.

that is the beauty of bitcoin that the one who has the currency is the owner. some people have doubt that what will happen if satoshi decide to round off the bitcoin but i think now it is not the property of satoshi he has no right to round off it now bitcoin has become a global currency and no one has the right or power to end it therefore we can say that bitcoin is very reliable and trustworthy.

[Superbitzz]

there is not a single owner of bitcoin. i think the one who has the bitocn he is the owner of his bitcoin.

yes it is right to say that bitcoin is not the property of a single person but the fact is the that it is the property of those people who own this just like gold and silver, so we can say that bitcoin is some thing different from the fiat currency that is the property of the sate and one cannot carry the money from one country to another without paying the tax,

[Shinseiten]

I don't think someone can "own" Bitcoin, but I think it's wrong to think that bitcoins can't be restricted by law or can't be touched at all, like many people think, don't be so reckless on judging powers beyond you.
Bitcoins, even if in a different way, are money and money is power. There is no power without control and the more it grows, the more someone will try to control it.

[Superbitzz]

I don't think someone can "own" Bitcoin, but I think it's wrong to think that bitcoins can't be restricted by law or can't be touched at all, like many people think, don't be so reckless on judging powers beyond you.
Bitcoins, even if in a different way, are money and money is power. There is no power without control and the more it grows, the more someone will try to control it.

yes that may be right bot the fact is that there bitcoin is not a regional currency or some one know that who is controlling it, i think that there is different between controlling and management, i think these people are managing bitcoin and not controlling it. and that si the reason that more people are believing on bitcoin. if they know about the fact that bitcoin is control by some one then no one will be ready to use it.

[ProPumps]

i don't see why a senior member has to ask such a question.

[Syke]

Why are they not spendable?

A quirk in the original codebase. Why is the quirk there? That we don't know. Satoshi never mentioned it.

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10009/why-can-t-the-genesis-block-coinbase-be-spent
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nc13r/the_first_50btc_block_reward_cant_be_spend_why/
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/9546a977d354b2ec6cd8455538e68fe4ba343a44/src/main.cpp#L1668 - Genesis block transaction treated as a special case in the reference code

[AgentofCoin]

Why are they not spendable?

A quirk in the original codebase. Why is the quirk there? That we don't know. Satoshi never mentioned it.

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/10009/why-can-t-the-genesis-block-coinbase-be-spent
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1nc13r/the_first_50btc_block_reward_cant_be_spend_why/
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/9546a977d354b2ec6cd8455538e68fe4ba343a44/src/main.cpp#L1668 - Genesis block transaction treated as a special case in the reference code

It is true we don't know for sure, but in theory:
The Genesis should not have any spendable coins since it was auto generated and not actually mined.
The Genesis is considered "Block Zero" and for Bitcoin mining to be seen as "fair" early on, the Genesis
should not have awarded Satoshi 50btc just for the sake of starting the blockchain. Each "award" needs
to be backed by work.

So the 50btc within the Genesis block is an error, since there was to be a 21 million coin cap, and due to
that slight error, we will only have a spendable 20,999,950 bitcoins.

Edit: fixed spendable number typo

[mindrust]

Someone who doesn't want you to believe that it can have one owner.

Everybody tells that bitcoin has no owner like parrots. Where is the proof? There isn't one. Bitcoin maybe has no "one" owner, maybe it does. One thing is for sure, bitcoin isn't made by coinsidence. It wasn't someone's college homework. It's a project which planned very well and i guess it has something to do with the U.S. government. I am telling this not because i have evidence, but i know that USA is having problems with USD and its value. Everybody knows that there are more USD than there should be. Maybe they brought up bitcoin just for that purpose, who knows...

[macedoniantable]

I think that Satoshi was a conglomerate of different people (possible around the world) working towards a better currency that can be used globally and not owned by one single person (the ownership rights to it) so that is why he/she/they wish to stay anonymous.

[lewis.jr]

Everyone owns bitcoin as long as you have an address with 1 satoshi in it holding the private you owned it.
Satoshi Nakamoto left 2010 but he dont own bitcoin just the concept.

What is a Satoshi?

lol haahhah 

[marketgold]

it's a wrong question,,who owns bitcoin'' . every people that have Bitcoin in his wallet it's an owner of Bitcoin

[btvGainer]

Anyone who possesses bitcoin is its owner.Even Satoshi cannot claim to own all bitcoins as he himself made them available to general public by selling,gifting or mining them