Is Satoshi Dead?

[benjamindees]

50 million dollars is a decent chunk of change for almost any software developer or economist.  It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.  I don't think either description fits.  I'm thinking that, by now, there are only two options as to why this hasn't happened:

1) Satoshi's coins are lost

2) Satoshi's coins are in the hands of some kind of corporate entity

Either of these scenarios has implications for the future of Bitcoin.

[1715318537]

1715318537

[1715318537]

1715318537

[1715318537]

1715318537

[Piper67]

50 million dollars is a decent chunk of change for almost any software developer or economist.  It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.  I don't think either description fits.  I'm thinking that, by now, there are only two options as to why this hasn't happened:

1) Satoshi's coins are lost

2) Satoshi's coins are in the hands of some kind of corporate entity

Either of these scenarios has implications for the future of Bitcoin.

You're assuming Satoshi was just one person... that's not necessarily the case.

[Lethn]

50 million dollars is a decent chunk of change for almost any software developer or economist.  It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.  I don't think either description fits.  I'm thinking that, by now, there are only two options as to why this hasn't happened:

1) Satoshi's coins are lost

2) Satoshi's coins are in the hands of some kind of corporate entity

Either of these scenarios has implications for the future of Bitcoin.

You're assuming Satoshi was just one person human... that's not necessarily the case.

fixed that lol

Honestly, if whoever this Satoshi person was wanted to do anything nefarious or silly, why would they make it open source and available for everyone to look at? The logic some people use for this kind of thing doesn't make sense.

[SgtSpike]

50 million dollars is a decent chunk of change for almost any software developer or economist.  It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.  I don't think either description fits.  I'm thinking that, by now, there are only two options as to why this hasn't happened:

1) Satoshi's coins are lost

2) Satoshi's coins are in the hands of some kind of corporate entity

Either of these scenarios has implications for the future of Bitcoin.

And how, exactly, do you know that Satoshi hasn't cached out 2% of his coins?

[xavier]

There is no way that those coins are lost. Someone smart enough to (1) create bitcoin and (2) leave the community to remain anonymous and just sit on the 5M (max) coins that they had created would definitely not loose such a huge number of coins.

Clearly 'Satoshi' is very much in touch with bitcoin and is tracking these forums regularly to work out a good time to release the coins and cash out. The problem for Satoshi is if they touch those coins, it's going to cause a huge amount of interest. Any cashing out would cause chaos. It doesnt matter if he only liquidated a small proportion - it would show in the blockchain that he/they is active and any action by itself that hinted a liquidation of such a large number of coins would be sure to cause a huge sell-off and problems for bitcoin, hence devaluing Satoshi's large holding. Maybe they should have thought about that problem when they designed the blockchain

The identity of Satoshi is no secret (a simply Google search and some reading will reveal the persons who are Satoshi - it has already been uncovered by a journalist) - and it is not just a single person.

[allthingsluxury]

I highly doubt that he would dump all of his coins on the market at once and crash the bitcoin market. I have faith that he understands economics 101.

[RodeoX]

Yeah, I'm fine. 

[wtfvanity]

There is no way that those coins are lost. Someone smart enough to (1) create bitcoin and (2) leave the community to remain anonymous and just sit on the 5M (max) coins that they had created would definitely not loose such a huge number of coins.

Absolutely. Satoshi has been quoted as saying that there is absolutely NO reason to ever destroy a private key or wallet even if they contain no balance. Those coins are not lost.

Honestly, if whoever this Satoshi person was wanted to do anything nefarious or silly, why would they make it open source and available for everyone to look at? The logic some people use for this kind of thing doesn't make sense.

Open source? There are lots of open source projects. That really has nothing to do with anything. His coins are there regardless if it is open source or closed. Open source allowed Satoshi to disappear, and take along his coins. Sure, it's only $250 Million USD now. What will it be in a couple of years? If Satoshi was already financially secure... why not way a few years before grabbing some change? He didn't cash out last time it was over $30. What makes this time any different?

It's easy to get an idea of how many coins he had at the beginning. Who's to say that he doesn't have other coins that he accumulated besides those that were mined if he needed money?

[knightmb]

I didn't know this topic still came up, are people still looking for him? He is not dead, but he does like his privacy. 

[xisnotx]

Out of the two options given, the second one seems more probable.
Why wouldn't he do so?

If I were him, I'd cash out right now and crash the market.

I guess that's why I'm not him. I would have cashed out at dollar parity.

[drawingthesun]

I didn't know this topic still came up, are people still looking for him? He is not dead, but he does like his privacy. 

Are you still working on Timekoin?

[knightmb]

Back in 2009 when Satoshi still did personal e-mails to members, it was pretty easy with a tracking pixel to pinpoint where he was at the time even though he used a foreign e-mail server. His Mac was using a plain vanilla e-mail client that would load the pixels from the same place for every message he read from me, so if the search is where was he at the time years ago, I can shed some light on that.

The question though is he dead, well he might be or he might not be? If he wanted the world to know, it was be easy enough for me to verify since he has the only private e-mail address that we exchanged messages with, so he could just send a "hey I am still alive" message.

My guess is that he is either still involved, just under a different name to avoid fans from overwhelming him or just has changed his lifestyle completely and left the world of digital currency behind. Also, he might be dead, in which case it is sad that no one will ever know unless family steps forward.

[bg002h]

There only like 5 million bucks on MtGox.

[Nick]

Where do you guys get the idea that Satoshi owns so and so many bitcoins? I always thought that the often quoted number of "one million Bitcoins" seems off, but now you're pulling "5 million" out of your asses. What the hell!

Stop spreading FUD!

[mintymark]

Dont forget if you have just invented probably the most significant thing since the internet, you are hardly going to destroy youu legacy by "Crashing" bitcoin even if you could.

And if he wanted to I am sure he could earn more money than you or I could imagine by quietly whispering, yeah and Bitcoin was one of my earlier projects...

You think he would need ever to withdraw those Bitcoins? I doubt it.  

Dead? Possible, of course, but super intelligent people have a habit of surviving, and I'd put him in this class.

You just wait until he releases the next thing he's working on. I doubt he has been Idle.

[TraderTimm]

Satoshi is a time-traveler who came from a dystopian future where centrally-managed currencies have caused economic havok and chaos. Strapping himself in his machine, he pushed a button and popped up on the outskirts of a major city. Making his way to the nearest hackspace, he began his coding odyssey.

When the whitepaper was complete, along with the code for the first client running along on his personal network, he sent the results out into the greater internet for it to germinate into the vibrant movement that it is today.

Looking down at his monitor, he only had a few seconds to consider what he had accomplished, before his upstream timeline was wiped out by the tsunami of change that bitcoin will be.

A well worn coin dropped to the floor from thin air, rolling to rest in the cracks of the dingy linoleum. The world had been saved, but would never know the man that started it all.

The inscription - "Strength in Numbers"...

[kangasbros]

Honestly, if whoever this Satoshi person was wanted to do anything nefarious or silly, why would they make it open source and available for everyone to look at? The logic some people use for this kind of thing doesn't make sense.

Do you honestly think that bitcoin would have gained traction while being closed source?

[Elwar]

The actual Satoshi has not yet even been born. And the time machine inventor is just a glimmer in his mother's eye.

[BTC Books]

I fall in the camp that believes Satoshi is still alive, and is a regular on the forum:  or at least one of the group collectively known as Satoshi, if he's more than one person.

Given his history, his UID would have to be the most unlikely person anyone could conceive of.

My vote goes to Atlas.

[Piper67]

The actual Satoshi has not yet even been born. And the time machine inventor is just a glimmer in his mother's eye.

What do we want? TIME TRAVEL!
When do we want it? IT'S IRRELEVANT!

[bitfair]

Back in 2009 when Satoshi still did personal e-mails to members, it was pretty easy with a tracking pixel to pinpoint where he was at the time even though he used a foreign e-mail server. His Mac was using a plain vanilla e-mail client that would load the pixels from the same place for every message he read from me, so if the search is where was he at the time years ago, I can shed some light on that.

Please elaborate!

[justusranvier]

Given his history, his UID would have to be the most unlikely person anyone could conceive of.

My vote goes to Atlas.

My favorite contrarian guess is MysteryMiner.

[BTC Books]

Back in 2009 when Satoshi still did personal e-mails to members, it was pretty easy with a tracking pixel to pinpoint where he was at the time even though he used a foreign e-mail server. His Mac was using a plain vanilla e-mail client that would load the pixels from the same place for every message he read from me, so if the search is where was he at the time years ago, I can shed some light on that.

Wait... what?

He's a Mac user... but wrote the first client for Windows?  Huh?

[Piper67]

Schroedinger's Satoshi 

[xavier]

So much misinformation on here. I'm not sure whether it's deliberate or not.

Ultimately 'Satoshi' doesn't care at all about bitcoin. They just wants their money in coins which is a max of 5M (Im not sure exactly how much, but Im sure you can work it out from looking at the blockchain).

As explained they cannot cash out yet as doing so would decrease the value of their own holdings too much. They have no choice but to wait until there is enough interest that they will be able to cash out their holdings without having such a large effect on the ecosystem.

My guess is that will be another few years at least.

ANyone who wants to know more about Satoshi should talk to Gavin and Theymos. Not only does Theymos know the exact location of Satoshi due to the fact they were a regular on these forums for so long, but both of them have the secret 'Alert' keys that can only have been supplied to them by Satoshi. They for certain will know who Satoshi is; and I'm guessing they are staying quiet for a reason.

PS. I'm referring to Satoshi in the plural due to my belief that 'Satoshi' is a pseudonym for a collection of people.

[Buffer Overflow]

The identity of Satoshi is no secret (a simply Google search and some reading will reveal the persons who are Satoshi - it has already been uncovered by a journalist) - and it is not just a single person.

Really? My Google searches just point to lots of theories and suspects. I can't find any 'Satoshi is XYZ' anywhere as you claim.

[J.Socal]

just did a quick numbers on that name and it = 10

[cjp]

Imagine you are Satoshi:

• You invented the biggest thing since the Internet, so you're obviously proud of it, and want it to become a success. This is even more important than becoming rich.
• You are really afraid that governments are going to try to prosecute everything and everyone related to Bitcoin

So what are you going to do with your pile of bitcoins?

• Any attempt to spend them or send them through a mixing service will probably be noticed, potentially causing panic on exchange markets. It's best to only do this when Bitcoin has a solid foundation in the economy (e.g. a large majority of Internet shops accepts them), so that large fluctuations are unlikely.
• You expect a dangerous period of prosecution, after which (hopefully) the world will embrace Bitcoin. It's best to stay low until the storm is over.

[johnyj]

Those bitcoins work just like central bank's reserve, when the currency exchange is in danger, they can step up and invervene

I remember that some time ago I read a chinese bank official's published analyze of bitcoin, and at the end of the article, he mentioned that banks would like to have majority of this currency as reserve in order to have control over the market price of bitcoin

This concern has some reason, since the biggest danger from bitcoin is that the exchange price goes to moon and there is no way to cool it. It will absorb no matter how much new money central bankers put into the market, that will dramatically negate the effort for fiat monetary policy. Any bubble will burst with a tighten of fiat money supply, but bitcoin is an currency, normal monetary policy won't affect it. If banks hold several millions of coin, then they will have the controll of exchange price (short term)

I have heard about that someone would like to order all the batch 1 avalon machines when it first launched, I guess some big players are already there accumulating bitcoin/hash power reserve for their long term purpose

[evoorhees]

I would guess the following about Satoshi:

1) He is alive and owns some substantial amount of coins. Of course nobody knows how many he has, for this would be impossible to know.

2) He is hiding and will never come forward as Satoshi. He must read the forums regularly, and is likely astounded that Bitcoin has grown to such a project. I bet he gets a little teary whenever he reads the latest developments, and in the back of his mind is thinking, "holy shit look what I did!! Badass!"

[Bit_Happy]

Here is Satoshi (the Coin Master) preparing for his next adventure. 

[Come-from-Beyond]

Satoshi is just an Artificial Intelligence. I won't be surprised if it was created by an accident in a Google lab.

[xavier]

I would guess the following about Satoshi:

1) He is alive and owns some substantial amount of coins. Of course nobody knows how many he has, for this would be impossible to know.

2) He is hiding and will never come forward as Satoshi. He must read the forums regularly, and is likely astounded that Bitcoin has grown to such a project. I bet he gets a little teary whenever he reads the latest developments, and in the back of his mind is thinking, "holy shit look what I did!! Badass!"

1. Yes I'd think it is possible to know. We know when Satoshi released the bitcoin software, we can put a high probability that Satoshi made the first couple of transactions (the largest ones) for his own benefit, as hardly anyone would've known about the technology at that point. Sorry, I cant be bothered to do the research right now, but Im sure its not difficult to figure out. We also have an archive of all the forum and newsgroup posts. It cannot be difficult to work out how many coins Satoshi owns. Heres a subject for the next sensational news article about bitcoin.

2. Im sure Satoshi is not at all astounded about Bitcoin. I'm no expert in C++, but from what I've read the original bitcoin code was of exceptional quality. Many potential hacks had been anticipated. Its clear that alot of work went into developing the concept, and that it was developed over a number of years. Its also clear that the authors were incredibly smart and had anticipated many future problems, which is why the technology has survived so long exposed to the world's hackers and computer experts. It's clear that the reason Satoshi decided to become anonymous from the beginning was because he anticipated the explosiveness of his invention. Its clear that's why Satoshi published his paper in 2009 as Satoshi, and not as his own name.

Really? My Google searches just point to lots of theories and suspects. I can't find any 'Satoshi is XYZ' anywhere as you claim.

Satoshi has always been Satoshi for a reason. Satoshi never wanted to be un-anonymous. Therefore Im not surprised that the authors will not reveal themselves as being Satoshi. However you will find a very similar patent to Satoshi's paper published in the month's preceding Satoshi's paper authored by 3 people. It's clear that the authors of this patent, having stumbled upon the bitcoin idea, made a decision to publish it fully in a pseudonymn because they foresaw the potential for the technology. They also foresaw it would be better for their networth & stress levels to just sit on a huge amount of coins and remain anonymous than to continue development in the mainstream. There's a good article that sums all of this up by providing clear evidence of who these authors are.

PS. Im not going to link to the article because this post may be removed if I link to it... thats why I said u have to use Google.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

Not sure who satoshi is but it could make a great movie one day 

[klee]

Chuck Norris kicked Satoshi in the ass to start mining for him back in the day...

[bg002h]

There only like 5 million bucks on MtGox.

7.5 million visible.

http://www.bitcoinx.com/charts1/depth_mtgox.png

Exactly. There's not much money on Gox.

[BTC Books]

We know when Satoshi released the bitcoin software, we can put a high probability that Satoshi made the first couple of transactions (the largest ones) for his own benefit, as hardly anyone would've known about the technology at that point.

Seriously?  There are 45,000 individual wallets, each with 50BTC in them.  Which are Satoshi's?  The first transactions were tiny.  Satohi's to another cryptographer.

...I cant be bothered to do the research right now...

Clearly.

...but from what I've read the original bitcoin code was of exceptional quality.

From what I've read, the code was sloppy, and kind of a hack job.

Im not going to link to the article because this post may be removed if I link to it...

Removed by whom?  The Illuminati?

Why hasn't Phinnaeus Gage had his post removed then:  a post that's been floating around for a year?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67840.0;all

Conspiracy much?

[bg002h]

What fraction of the first n Bitcoins ever created have been spent?  I would presume the first 1 million or so belong to Satoshi. I think
He was likely smart enough to periodically mix them though.

[BTC Books]

What fraction of the first n Bitcoins ever created have been spent?

A very small fraction.

I would presume the first 1 million or so belong to Satoshi.

You would be mistaken.  Read the link - a couple posts up - to the Phinneas Gage post.

[MysteryMiner]

50 million dollars is a decent chunk of change for almost any software developer or economist.  It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great

It is possible he cashed out part of his coins. It is almost impossible he had only one walled and not 2% of his coins stored somewhere else.

1) Satoshi's coins are lost

It is most likely what happened to early bitcoins.

2) Satoshi's coins are in the hands of some kind of corporate entity

Noy impossible but somehwat unlikely. First the private keys must be to the company and then the company decided not to move them. Not smart decision from security perspective.

Honestly, if whoever this Satoshi person was wanted to do anything nefarious or silly, why would they make it open source and available for everyone to look at?

He already can do silly things with coins he have.

The identity of Satoshi is no secret (a simply Google search and some reading will reveal the persons who are Satoshi - it has already been uncovered by a journalist) - and it is not just a single person.

It is pure speculation. There are many white spots in that story and few things does not glue together.

Absolutely. Satoshi has been quoted as saying that there is absolutely NO reason to ever destroy a private key or wallet even if they contain no balance. Those coins are not lost

Hi did say it where? He is right, I also always keep all wallets and private keys I ever come across, really no need to delete them.

Back in 2009 when Satoshi still did personal e-mails to members, it was pretty easy with a tracking pixel to pinpoint where he was at the time even though he used a foreign e-mail server. His Mac was using a plain vanilla e-mail client that would load the pixels from the same place for every message he read from me, so if the search is where was he at the time years ago, I can shed some light on that.

As I know he used Tor to send e-mails and the tracking pixel would not work as intended trough Tor. And I doubt he would be so careless, this is decade old technique used to deanonymize someone by skids and feds. Even Digital Fortress mentioned this trick.

My guess is that he is either still involved, just under a different name to avoid fans from overwhelming him or just has changed his lifestyle completely and left the world of digital currency behind

You can never leave computers, coding or hacking if you are into it. It is so much better than sex or drugs combined. He either is still here or something very bad happened to him.

Dead? Possible, of course, but super intelligent people have a habit of surviving, and I'd put him in this class.

And I thought that super healthy people have habit of surviving. It would be bad if he left and did not implement some dead hand system in case of his imprisonment or death.

Given his history, his UID would have to be the most unlikely person anyone could conceive of.

My vote goes to Atlas.

I vote then for Dank or Luke-Jr.

My favorite contrarian guess is MysteryMiner.

I'm not Satoshi and even if I am I will never tell You!

You just wait until he releases the next thing he's working on. I doubt he has been Idle.

Bitcoin might be one hit wonder. His next thing might be something unimpressive like video codec filter or server database engine. Or Satoshi is cheesing all day long looking at awesome boobs.

Imagine you are Satoshi:

    You invented the biggest thing since the Internet, so you're obviously proud of it, and want it to become a success. This is even more important than becoming rich.
    You are really afraid that governments are going to try to prosecute everything and everyone related to Bitcoin

In next few years we will see. Obviously Satoshi knows Phil Zimmerman story. No one wants to end up in Camp Justice for creating and exporting ammunition using his code compiler.

[thebaron]

It's pretty easy to figure out who it is if you pay attention to the people who are actively promoting it.

[MysteryMiner]

It's pretty easy to figure out who it is if you pay attention to the people who are actively promoting it.

No it is not! Tell it if You are sure about it and we will laugh!

[luckyindia]

What does it mean to say that SATOSHI is dead....?  Death is for physical animate tangible things.....but SATOSHI NAKAMOTO  refers to a system of perfection,  for the  common good of mankind....He is very much alive......All members of this forum  must learn to respect the founders and senior members of this Forum

[Raoul Duke]

Im not going to link to the article because this post may be removed if I link to it...

Removed by whom?  The Illuminati?

Why hasn't Phinnaeus Gage had his post removed then:  a post that's been floating around for a year?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67840.0;all

Conspiracy much?

Yeah, Xavier... put up or shut up!

It's pretty easy to figure out who it is if you pay attention to the people who are actively promoting it.

LOL. If I remember correctly, the last thing satoshi wanted was people promoting Bitcoin the way they are doing.

[xavier]

The identity of Satoshi is no secret (a simply Google search and some reading will reveal the persons who are Satoshi - it has already been uncovered by a journalist) - and it is not just a single person.

It is pure speculation. There are many white spots in that story and few things does not glue together.

Pls can u expand on the "white spots"

I was bored earlier and spend more time researching the article. AFAIK everything seems to fit.

RE: BTC Books, Psy

Im only speculating . Obviously Satoshi chose to remain anonymous so for this reason he is unlikely to come forward and admit who 'he' is. I dont know who Satoshi is , the information I have seen is just whats publicly on the web. However having analysed the information , my conclusion is that the highest probability is that Satoshi is more than 1 person, he is the 3 people/

My contribution to this post was just the analysis that i have personally done. As I said if u wanted to get a real confirmation, probably u should ask someone from the early community - Theymos, Gavin or even knightmb. HOwever i think its important to consider who Satoshi actually is hence support for the OPs concern.

[MysteryMiner]

Pls can u expand on the "white spots"

I was bored earlier and spend more time researching the article. AFAIK everything seems to fit.

The initial coins. If Satoshi is multiple people, how all these people agree to dont move initial coins, all agree not to reveal the truth about Satoshi, how they manage the Satoshi GPG key. Such consistency for multiple people in not in human nature.

For this theory speaks the initial dialect used by Satoshi to be changed soon afterwards. This might be proof for one human creating initial Satoshi posts and be later replaced with another.

[MoonShadow]

Im only speculating . Obviously Satoshi chose to remain anonymous so for this reason he is unlikely to come forward and admit who 'he' is. I dont know who Satoshi is , the information I have seen is just whats publicly on the web. However having analysed the information , my conclusion is that the highest probability is that Satoshi is more than 1 person, he is the 3 people/

This is the same kind of speculation that the Good Wife episode engaged in.  It's not without merit, for a small & socially tight group can keep such a character secret.  And as for the argument that Satoshi's posting style doesn't really change (the earlier use of British terminology could have been intentional misdirection, but his/her writing style doesn't really change, imho) the trio could simply have appointed one of their own to be the point man for online communication via the character.  Truth be told, a small workgroup has been suspected from very early on, even before he vanished from the forum and the Internet, because of the breadth of professional grade knowledge necessary to make Bitcoin what it was from the early stages.  One player as the semi-trained programmer (perhaps a computer science college major or graduate with very little production experience?), another player with the economics background and a third with the mathmatics background.  It's both possible and probable that, under such a condition, all three (more?) characters remain on this forum in their less anonymous personnas.  There could be more than three major players, but only three distinct disciplines are required.  That's not to say that one person couldn't self-educate in one or all of these disciplines, but any such person would be a polymath.  Occum's Razor implies that there are three people involved, and only three people, in order to accomplish this feat and keep it quiet.

[maaku]

More likely - and this is coming from someone involved in the creation of an honest alt-chain - he didn't trust himself with the coins. In my case we locked the Freicoin Foundation keys in a safe deposit box, and legally transferred ownership to the non-profit. When those freicoins become worth $50MM, I wouldn't trust myself with the keys! And now I don't have to - if I did embezzle them I'd be held responsible (perhaps criminally) for doing so.

Satoshi didn't want to de-anonymize himself, and if he's human and honest (and not crazy wealthy to begin with) he wouldn't have trusted himself to not spend those coins. So in all likelihood he either (A) set the wallets to destroy automatically, or (B) put them in some sort of tamper-proof time capsule, gave them to his lawyer with strict instructions, or something similar.

At least that's my guess.

[MysteryMiner]

The math and programmer can be single person who are good at computer cryptography. Also I suspect that the programmer at some point have taken look at bots. The way early Bitcoin versions bootstraps and finds peers using IRC is very similar to how older bots connect to each other and C&C channel. Bitcoin at some point accidentally triggered botnet detection on some monitored connections. Search forum for this.

So it is down to two people. Computer cryptographer with some hacking background and economist. But even these two can be united into single person. Economics are not so difficult to understand, many can master them if they abandon all ideological indoctrinations about economics. They all come down to simple mathematics mixed with universal greed and stupidity. So majority with good mathematical and logical thinking can also predict the economical principles of Bitcoin.

The values of coin distribution and block times really are right on spot, the values chosen might be pure luck or really good planning.

[MysteryMiner]

More likely - and this is coming from someone involved in the creation of an honest alt-chain - he didn't trust himself with the coins. In my case we locked the Freicoin Foundation keys in a safe deposit box, and legally transferred ownership to the non-profit. When those freicoins become worth $50MM, I wouldn't trust myself with the keys! And now I don't have to - if I did embezzle them I'd be held responsible (perhaps criminally) for doing so.

Satoshi didn't want to de-anonymize himself, and if he's human and honest (and not crazy wealthy to begin with) he wouldn't have trusted himself to not spend those coins. So in all likelihood he either (A) set the wallets to destroy automatically, or (B) put them in some sort of tamper-proof time capsule, gave them to his lawyer with strict instructions, or something similar.

At least that's my guess.

This is nonsense. If Satoshi could not trust himself these keys, he should send the associated coins to me. Why he should not have them? He might go around snorting coke and killing everyone just because he become richest person on earth by creating the next best thing after internet?

[Herodes]

Satoshi is immortal. 

[thebaron]

Satoshi is immortal. 

It's no coincidence that Dread Pirate Roberts runs The Silk Road.

[DPony13]

What if the Pentagon took Satoshi.
or he's dead.
or not.
maybe he's me..... or anyone of
you for that matter xD

[Raoul Duke]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

[paraipan]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Great, now I'm pretty safe knowing they will be all watching you 

[Raoul Duke]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Great, now I'm pretty safe knowing they will be all watching you 

PT to SP is a flea jump... You're not as safe as you might think...

[paraipan]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Great, now I'm pretty safe knowing they will be all watching you  

PT to SP is a flea jump... You're not as safe as you might think...

[repentance]

If I recall correctly, I joined the forums when about 2 million BTC had been mined and Satoshi had already vanished from public life before then.  Yes, it's possible that he's continued to acquire BTC at every opportunity but it's also possible that he gave away a substantial amount when they were worth nothing, as did other early adopters, and/or sold some of his BTC.

[MoonShadow]

The math and programmer can be single person who are good at computer cryptography. Also I suspect that the programmer at some point have taken look at bots. The way early Bitcoin versions bootstraps and finds peers using IRC is very similar to how older bots connect to each other and C&C channel. Bitcoin at some point accidentally triggered botnet detection on some monitored connections. Search forum for this.

I don't disagree with this position at all, but...

So it is down to two people. Computer cryptographer with some hacking background and economist. But even these two can be united into single person. Economics are not so difficult to understand, many can master them if they abandon all ideological indoctrinations about economics. They all come down to simple mathematics mixed with universal greed and stupidity. So majority with good mathematical and logical thinking can also predict the economical principles of Bitcoin.

While economics isn't a particularly difficult subject when taken from the right tack, there is much more going on here.  Unless it's just a huge matter of luck, Satoshi wasn't just some armchair economist who has read Hayak.  He was a true Praxeologist, and that also implies some degree of understanding regarding common psychology.  Which is something that neither the common economist, nor the common cryptologist (with or without a talent for self-taught computer programming) is likely to be able to grasp.  The social & psychological aspects of Praxeology tend to require a completely different learning style/personality type/Myers-Briggs type than those of the analytical reasoning that computer programming & mathmatics demand.  There is exactly one Myers-Briggs type that can manage both perspectives in the same mind without significant cognative dissonance; and that type is both the least common (by far) of any type and the least likely to be a self-motivated individual.  Said another way, a polymath (as rare as they are) is unlikely to also be an innovator.  I concede in advance that it's possible that Satoshi was, in fact, a self-motivated polymath.  I'm just stating that Occum's Razor implies that such a possibility is not the most likely reality.  The need to have 1) the feeler (a psycologist), 2) the analyst (cryptographicly trained coder) and the 3) visionary (the innovator) still implies at least two people and still probably three; thus a triumvirate.

The values of coin distribution and block times really are right on spot, the values chosen might be pure luck or really good planning.

Agreed.  Again, much of it could have been pure luck, and thus only one kind of mind would have been necessary (the visionary).  Still, I don't really believe in luck for the vast majority of human progress.

[MysteryMiner]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Sign this statement with any of Satoshi's private keys and we can lock this topic.

[Raoul Duke]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Sign this statement with any of Satoshi's private keys and we can lock this topic.

I can't. Locked that wallet in a time capsule and only my attorney can open it after I'm dead.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

Sign this statement with any of Satoshi's private keys and we can lock this topic.

If I were Satoshi I would say that I'm Satoshi Nakamoto. Noone would believe me and I would be safe.
Hence Psy == Satoshi.

No need to sign the statement, just lock the topic.

[MysteryMiner]

I can't. Locked that wallet in a time capsule and only my attorney can open it after I'm dead.

This was Your mistake. If I'm Your attorney I will arrange Your death, extract private keys from the time capsule device and enjoy my 50 millions.

If I were Satoshi I would say that I'm Satoshi Nakamoto. Noone would believe me and I would be safe.
Hence Psy == Satoshi.

If Gavin would say that it will be different.

[phelix]

Satoshi is just an Artificial Intelligence. I won't be surprised if it was created by an accident in a Google lab.

Come on...   it is clear that he is an alien lifeform stranded on earth and needing money to be able to go home. Satoshi is ET.

Unfortunately Satoshi/ET was kidnapped by the CIA.

[Astro]

Let's get real here.  It's clear that Satoshi is a time traveler who came back to give us this technology in order to save the future world from some economic calamity. 

[johnyj]

A woman ? 

[johnyj]

While economics isn't a particularly difficult subject when taken from the right tack, there is much more going on here.  Unless it's just a huge matter of luck, Satoshi wasn't just some armchair economist who has read Hayak.  He was a true Praxeologist, and that also implies some degree of understanding regarding common psychology.  Which is something that neither the common economist, nor the common cryptologist (with or without a talent for self-taught computer programming) is likely to be able to grasp.  The social & psychological aspects of Praxeology tend to require a completely different learning style/personality type/Myers-Briggs type than those of the analytical reasoning that computer programming & mathmatics demand.  There is exactly one Myers-Briggs type that can manage both perspectives in the same mind without significant cognative dissonance; and that type is both the least common (by far) of any type and the least likely to be a self-motivated individual.  Said another way, a polymath (as rare as they are) is unlikely to also be an innovator.  I concede in advance that it's possible that Satoshi was, in fact, a self-motivated polymath.  I'm just stating that Occum's Razor implies that such a possibility is not the most likely reality.  The need to have 1) the feeler (a psycologist), 2) the analyst (cryptographicly trained coder) and the 3) visionary (the innovator) still implies at least two people and still probably three; thus a triumvirate.

I think economics is the most difficult topic on the planet because it is such a complex society that combines all the existing knowledge of human. So far no one has mastered it, that's the reason human are running into all sorts of economic problem from time to time

Austrian economics is not mainstream because they can not do anything to help when a recession strikes, and people always want to do something to improve during unlucky period, just this simple fact is enough to say that economics have very close relation to politics

[oakpacific]

There only like 5 million bucks on MtGox.

7.5 million visible.

http://www.bitcoinx.com/charts1/depth_mtgox.png

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120831.html In the seven months between Jan 31 and Aug 31, Gox transferred 50 millions worth of dollars, after this unprecedented rally, I would expect hundreds of millions of dollars must have poured in.

[areebmajeed]

Satoshi will BitAttack you all!   

[MoonShadow]

Austrian economics is not mainstream because they can not do anything to help when a recession strikes, and people always want to do something to improve during unlucky period, just this simple fact is enough to say that economics have very close relation to politics

This statement alone tells me that you have a poor understanding of Austrian economic theory.  It's also a false statement.

[caveden]

It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.

Unless Satoshi lives in a country whose government truly respects its subjects' financial privacy (I'm not aware of any), spending any substantial amount of his coins without declaring them might get him in trouble with the tax man.
Declaring and paying taxes on them might ruin his anonymity.

It's possible he's simply trapped by this, holding onto his coins, waiting for an eventual future solution to pop up.

[zebedee]

I'm surprised no-one has tried to figure out who the programmer might have been (assuming the group hypothesis for now) from the coding style.

Coding style (CamelCase vs underscores, bracing style, indenting style, variable style, naming conventions, it goes on forever) is hard to fake consistently and a very good fingerprint.

And C++ is a cesspit of ugly patterns and styles, all unique from what I've seen.  Recent codebase isn't good to look at owing to contamination, but original code would be a good starting point IMO.

[oakpacific]

It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.

Unless Satoshi lives in a country whose government truly respects its subjects' financial privacy (I'm not aware of any), spending any substantial amount of his coins without declaring them might get him in trouble with the tax man.
Declaring and paying taxes on them might ruin his anonymity.

It's possible he's simply trapped by this, holding onto his coins, waiting for an eventual future solution to pop up.

There is also this possibility that he is already financially comfortable that he could go on this one man's endeavour for two years to build everything from scratch, it's already an incredible amount of work to do full-time, I could hardly imagine someone can get it done part-time.

[rpietila]

There is also this possibility that he is already financially comfortable that he could go on this one man's endeavour for two years to build everything from scratch, it's already an incredible amount of work to do full-time, I could hardly imagine someone can get it done part-time.

This. Satoshi must have been in possession of financial resources in the order of ~$300,000 at least. That is a figure which allows you to do whatever you want (as long as you dont have vices, wife or kids In order to have such money, he must have been at least 25 years old, probably closer to 30.

It is just our preoccupation with cashing out.. As a highly competent person, Satoshi has had time to make a fortune since his disappearing, in something totally unrelated. If he has no need for big money to further his goals, he can just make the "small" money by using his talent.

I am not Satoshi (even though I am a Finn and know several people accused of being Satoshi.. When I first bought into bitcoin, I was thinking to sell a bit every now and then. But I have been mesmerized by the concept to such an extent that I haven't sold a single coin, quite the contrary. Even now I am buying.

The fact that Martti is receiving a part of his salary in bitcoin actually supports the theory that he is Satoshi... It is such an obvious unobvious move from a person who controls up to half a million bitcoins, to want some more 

[xavier]

Im sure Satoshi does not care much about bitcoin. He just wants to cash out his holdings. I'm guessing for him it's a full time occupation, working out how he's going to do it. I cant imagine anyone with so much money would be bothered to work. Plus he would need to keep a close eye on the exchanges and news to watch for anything that could affect his net worth.

IMO, (many ppl may not agree - fair enough) Satoshi is not one person. It is 3 people as identified by a magazine article recently published , with undeniable evidence that has been presented about Satoshi. If one goes through this article and does some research on the people mentioned, looks at their previous postings (one in particular has a style very similar to satoshi), you will also be able to see that they have posted on these forums under different usernames since Satoshi disappeared. Whilst using the search function I noticed 1 suspicious example. http://bit.ly/WkjEHg

RE: uncirculating bitcoins

http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf

It is interested that apparently an 'unknown entity' has commanded 3 million BTCs distributed across 78,000 addresses. Im not sure if the entity still owns this many BTCs however. It would be interested to identity this person.  

Similar anonymous entities (ex Mt Gox & identified mining pools) have processed:  (just copying from the paper here)

940,000 BTC
870,000 BTC
690,000 BTC
...

with a further 11 entities processed amounts of over 400,000 BTC.

Now ok I understand that this list is probably mainly mining pools & miners but also could more than 1 of them be Satoshi. The number of ppl who could accumulate so many BTCs in such a short time is very small (this was in May 2012).

(up until May 13th 2012) we discovered that most of the minted bitcoins remain dormant in addresses which had never
participated in any outgoing transactions. We found out that there is a huge number of tiny transactions which move only a small fraction of a single bit- coin, but there are also hundreds of transactions which move more than 50,000
bitcoins.

The design of bitcoin, the complexity around it, required more than 1 very smart person. In addition, the way in which someone has distributed their holdings amoungst so many addresses - it's very smart. I dont think any of these coins are 'lost'. IMO these coins will emerge at some point, maybe alongside 'Satoshi' himself.

Thanks also to Citigroup for this research as it seems they funded the paper.

[johnyj]

Satoshi mentioned cypherpunk, I did some reading there, seems lot's of old history

[RodeoX]

Satoshi mentioned cypherpunk, I did some reading there, seems lot's of old history

Yes. Satoshi was clearly influenced by the cypherpunks and may well consider himself one.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

That's exactly what we would expect you state if you wanted to throw us off the scent, couple with claiming to be Portuguese, a country known for...thinking...thinking...I'll get back to you on that.

[justusranvier]

That's exactly what we would expect you state if you wanted to throw us off the scent, couple with claiming to be Portuguese, a country known for...thinking...thinking...I'll get back to you on that.

Jellyfish?

[Raoul Duke]

Fuck it. I give up. You guys got me. I'm Satoshi Nakamoto

That's exactly what we would expect you state if you wanted to throw us off the scent, couple with claiming to be Portuguese, a country known for...thinking...thinking...I'll get back to you on that.

Known for having divided the planet in half with the Spanish more than 5 centuries ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas
I know Americans are trying to follow our footsteps, but we did it without sending soldiers and killing everyone that stands in the way. Beat that, USA!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This thread is now about the Treaty of Tordesillas. Further proof that psy is Satoshi.

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

Satoshi is just an Artificial Intelligence. I won't be surprised if it was created by an accident in a Google lab.

THIS

And the first question for this A.I. was : how to find moar powa ?

Give people a imaginary coin for calcul sharing..

Genius !

[klee]

We live in a simulation - the programmers run various scenarios to fix their own f@cked up economy. Satoshi is the name of the software house (like Microsoft or Google).

 

[Tirapon]

From Satoshi Dice:

"STEP 2
The Ghost of Satoshi will roll the dice and pick a Lucky Number!"

=> yes, Satoshi is dead.

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

We live in a simulation - the programmers run various scenarios to fix their own f@cked up economy. Satoshi is the name of the software house (like Microsoft or Google).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3

A very very good book ! Old, but good !

[klee]

We live in a simulation - the programmers run various scenarios to fix their own f@cked up economy. Satoshi is the name of the software house (like Microsoft or Google).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacron-3

A very very good book ! Old, but good !

A chance to spend the weekend reading...

[Come-from-Beyond]

From Satoshi Dice:

"STEP 2
The Ghost of Satoshi will roll the dice and pick a Lucky Number!"

=> yes, Satoshi is dead.

Next question: Who killed Satoshi?

(What if Satoshi was given an order to create a p2p currency and after he competed his work one of the 3-letter agencies got rid of him?)

[oakpacific]

Im sure Satoshi does not care much about bitcoin. He just wants to cash out his holdings. I'm guessing for him it's a full time occupation, working out how he's going to do it. I cant imagine anyone with so much money would be bothered to work. Plus he would need to keep a close eye on the exchanges and news to watch for anything that could affect his net worth.

IMO, (many ppl may not agree - fair enough) Satoshi is not one person. It is 3 people as identified by a magazine article recently published , with undeniable evidence that has been presented about Satoshi. If one goes through this article and does some research on the people mentioned, looks at their previous postings (one in particular has a style very similar to satoshi), you will also be able to see that they have posted on these forums under different usernames since Satoshi disappeared. Whilst using the search function I noticed 1 suspicious example. http://bit.ly/WkjEHg

RE: uncirculating bitcoins

http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf

It is interested that apparently an 'unknown entity' has commanded 3 million BTCs distributed across 78,000 addresses. Im not sure if the entity still owns this many BTCs however. It would be interested to identity this person.  

Similar anonymous entities (ex Mt Gox & identified mining pools) have processed:  (just copying from the paper here)

940,000 BTC
870,000 BTC
690,000 BTC
...

with a further 11 entities processed amounts of over 400,000 BTC.

Now ok I understand that this list is probably mainly mining pools & miners but also could more than 1 of them be Satoshi. The number of ppl who could accumulate so many BTCs in such a short time is very small (this was in May 2012).

(up until May 13th 2012) we discovered that most of the minted bitcoins remain dormant in addresses which had never
participated in any outgoing transactions. We found out that there is a huge number of tiny transactions which move only a small fraction of a single bit- coin, but there are also hundreds of transactions which move more than 50,000
bitcoins.

The design of bitcoin, the complexity around it, required more than 1 very smart person. In addition, the way in which someone has distributed their holdings amoungst so many addresses - it's very smart. I dont think any of these coins are 'lost'. IMO these coins will emerge at some point, maybe alongside 'Satoshi' himself.

Thanks also to Citigroup for this research as it seems they funded the paper.

THe biggest 4 addresses as of now have been identified to below to Silk Road and Coinad.

I don't think Satoshi created the bitcoin just to cash out his holdings, looking in retrospective everyone can claim that they should have come up with such an idea, but who could have envisioned that this thing could become so successful that it can actually produce a few millionaires?  It would seem plausible that the only attention bitcoin would get is some random people coming around to take a glimpse at his paper and code, and leave some trashy comments, and nothing more-the internet is full of dead projects. If someone was so convinced to devote such a huge part of his/their time to create and maintain such a project,  I am sure there was something else motivating him, other than wealth. Not to say that whether it's one or several people, their intelligence and capability should be able to land a fine job for them.

[Amitabh S]

If someone claims to be Satoshi, how would you want them to prove it? Maybe release the bitcoins from the first few unspent transactions?

[thebaron]

Still, nobody has correctly guessed his identity. On the public internet, anyway.

[bg002h]

There only like 5 million bucks on MtGox.

well over 8 and that is just on the open orders

Exactly...there Isn't much money available if someone tried to sell millions of coins all at once...certainly not $500 million! We can't all sell our cons at once and all of us make "money."

[caveden]

If someone claims to be Satoshi, how would you want them to prove it? Maybe release the bitcoins from the first few unspent transactions?

Signing any message with the genesis block coinbase key.

[paraipan]

Still, nobody has correctly guessed his identity. On the public internet, anyway.

Because Satoshi is not a human, but
 Purple alien.

This (*coin project) special operation was
 called "Nakamoto" by Purples.

The goal of the "Nakamoto"-plan - to enslave Earth and humans.

The first step : create *coin(s) and
 suck into them all wealth on the planet.

The second step : destroy all *coins.

The final step : invade Earth
< after 1) and 2) it'll be relatively easy. >

Haha, quite funny. Here goes mine...

Give those primitive creatures a tool that preserves wealth, incentivezes saving and frees them of "leeches" = Check

Wait for the moment their IQ is over 100 and start inventing real defense systems, like star-ships and laser cannons, and be fair with them.
We then can invade Earth = Waiting for it...

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Still, nobody has correctly guessed his identity. On the public internet, anyway.

Because Satoshi is not a human, but
 Purple alien.

This (*coin project) special operation was
 called "Nakamoto" by Purples.

The goal of the "Nakamoto"-plan - to enslave Earth and humans.

The first step : create *coin(s) and
 suck into them all wealth on the planet.

The second step : destroy all *coins.

The final step : invade Earth
< after 1) and 2) it'll be relatively easy. >

You could've of at least stated some fuzzy dates in the timeline.

[shamaniotastook]

Satoshi is a time-traveler who came from a dystopian future where centrally-managed currencies have caused economic havok and chaos. Strapping himself in his machine, he pushed a button and popped up on the outskirts of a major city. Making his way to the nearest hackspace, he began his coding odyssey.

When the whitepaper was complete, along with the code for the first client running along on his personal network, he sent the results out into the greater internet for it to germinate into the vibrant movement that it is today.

Looking down at his monitor, he only had a few seconds to consider what he had accomplished, before his upstream timeline was wiped out by the tsunami of change that bitcoin will be.

A well worn coin dropped to the floor from thin air, rolling to rest in the cracks of the dingy linoleum. The world had been saved, but would never know the man that started it all.

The inscription - "Strength in Numbers"...

+10

[lophie]

-----BEGIN-SIGNATURE-BLOCK-------------------------------------
Address:    1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
Message:    "I am Satoshi Nakamoto"
            "signed on 2013-Mar-19 00:00am."
PublicKey:  041da18d0f5399eda038036508c707f4c26b9e8a7b284cb927
            de7cfb87206e4e6b3b324bd59b2158453a6c34b9e0378e5f55
            cb2391957654a3e48362f41cf6112a
Signature:  342061938d154db249d20c09697033a93691e247a4976761a5
            0f2e8cf1c20b0fb76b67805147d1dfd54beead03b340b750da
            b64fc6669ae93cb87ca81376af1d
-----END-SIGNATURE-BLOCK---------------------------------------

[Stn]

Satoshi lived!
   Satoshi lives!
       Satoshi will ever live!

[wtfvanity]

-----BEGIN-SIGNATURE-BLOCK-------------------------------------
Address:    1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
Message:    "I am Satoshi Nakamoto"
            "signed on 2013-Mar-19 00:00am."
PublicKey:  041da18d0f5399eda038036508c707f4c26b9e8a7b284cb927
            de7cfb87206e4e6b3b324bd59b2158453a6c34b9e0378e5f55
            cb2391957654a3e48362f41cf6112a
Signature:  342061938d154db249d20c09697033a93691e247a4976761a5
            0f2e8cf1c20b0fb76b67805147d1dfd54beead03b340b750da
            b64fc6669ae93cb87ca81376af1d
-----END-SIGNATURE-BLOCK---------------------------------------

lol, sign it with the client with public key of the address, not some random public key.

[thebaron]

I'm just going to leave this here just in case he ever comes out in public to prove that I was right.

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: BCPG v1.47

hI4DMOYX8bimLjEQAf9tIVCe0URhlhu0zrjOuW5h0OQub9Ft6v6KDZbriywpli1W
7RUn+LN2xiamwVIAsTCx+B6HZU/ntSHvieUzzXYWAgCH3PIQI4dVgwdk9xJD9x/6
aoNvuiDXAPfI+FaUKUpk+F7IqyQuVfns6SfSV18Ya2BieXPTYOHahr8r5KYFyWYC
0owB+ImWdqjYQrAY6cmEtIqqZBCd9eLyFfPagbiSWP6OWD7yUzgx++qaKcmSSELG
5aEAqCVhR0sxyH8zODxNW6dVlJWO+A9tVLOjYz7UOCHd6yxETYLmxdWQUMmGIlFm
Up+M9EToChFs02Tb51OOtQfXzhwr6cWxHHggEOX8HNfnIf/WCyADXb0GVc9ZSA==
=ZnqX
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

[lophie]

Took you long enough! Too bad admins dont appreciate a good joke and they banned my pm rights. I demand a compensation sent to my bitcoin address otherwise I will sue!

Seriously if you had a good laugh do something about it. Get me a drink or something. BTC style 

[MysteryMiner]

Bumping this thread.

Is there any indirect clues about death of Satoshi or that he still is well and alive? Or this is just a wild speculation.

[MoonShadow]

Bumping this thread.

Is there any indirect clues about death of Satoshi or that he still is well and alive? Or this is just a wild speculation.

This entire thread is wild speculation.

[Herodes]

50 million dollars is a decent chunk of change for almost any software developer or economist.  It's the kind of stash that, even if you are in Bitcoin for the long haul, the temptation to cash out just 2% of it and buy a yacht or an island or something is just too great.  Not doing so means that you are either extremely wealthy already, or some kind of supervillain who intends to take over the world once Bitcoin is in more widespread use.  I don't think either description fits.  I'm thinking that, by now, there are only two options as to why this hasn't happened:

1) Satoshi's coins are lost

2) Satoshi's coins are in the hands of some kind of corporate entity

Either of these scenarios has implications for the future of Bitcoin.

3) He doesn't care about personal wealth.

[btcinstant]

wild speculation.

[thebaron]

I will sell my guess for BTC11,000,000.

[fruitcommander]

Insanely wild speculation.

BTC2

[benjamindees]

3) He doesn't care about personal wealth.

See, this doesn't really hold water for me.  Even if he doesn't care about personal wealth, he can give them away.  He could purchase some goods with Bitcoins and have them sent to a local charity.

If he doesn't care about his Bitcoins, but still has control over them, then distributing them, one way or another, during either of the last two run-ups would have had a hugely beneficial effect on the Bitcoin economy.

I don't want to turn this into "Satoshi should spend his Bitcoins."  Perhaps he shouldn't.  I'm just saying there are only a few scenarios that really make sense, and they all have consequences.

[thebaron]

Maybe he doesn't spend them because his ex-wife from Hell would steal his money through increased child support payments.

[rpietila]

3) He doesn't care about personal wealth.

See, this doesn't really hold water for me.  Even if he doesn't care about personal wealth, he can give them away.  He could purchase some goods with Bitcoins and have them sent to a local charity.

If he doesn't care about his Bitcoins, but still has control over them, then distributing them, one way or another, during either of the last two run-ups would have had a hugely beneficial effect on the Bitcoin economy.

I don't want to turn this into "Satoshi should spend his Bitcoins."  Perhaps he shouldn't.  I'm just saying there are only a few scenarios that really make sense, and they all have consequences.

In order for Bitcoin software to work, it must be connected to another node. So Satoshi must have had other machines in addition to the backbone miner. These would easily have generated 10,000s of coins during 2009-2010, which Satoshi could have, and probably has, partially spent anonymously.

What if Satoshi has an active wallet of BTC50,000 now? I would think everyone is happy!

I would give 10% chance that any of the mystery miner coins will ever be spent. It just doesn't seem that way. I like it.

[seljo]

http://www.findsatoshi.com/

[Hei_]

i R satoshi!

[furezasan]

The actual Satoshi has not yet even been born. And the time machine inventor is just a glimmer in his mother's eye.

This theory makes the most sense to me... he came back from the future, implemented bitcoin (he didn't invent it, he's just the messenger and bitcoin was actually invented in 2140 by the Satoshi rebellion group {aka children of WW3 which kicks off with the current political climate greece and north korea etc.} and foresaw their demise before bitcoin had time to manifest in their time) By doing this they will secure the future, stop WW3 from ever taking place at least in our timeline and that's why bitcoin generation expires in 2140, mD-Day (max Difficulty day).

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

http://www.findsatoshi.com/

We really need such a website.

[mc_lovin]

http://www.findsatoshi.com/

We really need such a website.

I have a thread where I am compiling theories...  

http://www.bitcointrading.com/forum/talk-bitcoin/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto-thread-of-theories!/

ahh, bitcointalk incorrectly sees an ! as a stop in a URL, to click on through, i've bit.ly'd it -> http://bit.ly/14zF9bR

Surely enough theories are posted and all the clues in one place, a conclusion might be drawn from the findings..

[bassclef]

satoshi has died
satoshi has risen
satoshi will come again

[Wouter Drucker]

Everybody on this forum is Satoshi.

Time for our pills.

[BitBank]

Also, he might be dead, in which case it is sad that no one will ever know unless family steps forward.

You don't think Gavin knows who / what Satoshi is?

[jamesgarfield]

I doubt Satoshi is dead... But its a possibility.

[farlack]

If he has 50,000 in 1 wallet, he probably has another some thousands in another. You don't need $50,000,000 to live rich.

[Exoskeleton]

While we all today live on the last permanent timeline, I would like to say that the first battles in the time-space continuum happened over bitcoin, but of this I can not be certain. The only thing we know for sure is that in the end...the humans won...

[MoonShadow]

Also, he might be dead, in which case it is sad that no one will ever know unless family steps forward.

You don't think Gavin knows who / what Satoshi is?

I can state with fair certainty that he does not.

[QuestionAuthority]

Also, he might be dead, in which case it is sad that no one will ever know unless family steps forward.

You don't think Gavin knows who / what Satoshi is?

I can state with fair certainty that he does not.

You know he is Satoshi don't you? You know all kinds of insider stuff.

[HeroC]

If I were him, I'd cash out right now and crash the market.

No. Just no.

[TraderTimm]

Bitcoin could have been created by corporate elitists for all we know. With so little information, everything being claimed about "satoshi" is just hearsay and there might not be a "satoshi" at all. The truth is we don't know who/what created bitcoin or what their intentions are/were.

Seeing how brain-dead the "corporate elitists" are, I'm pretty sure it wasn't their brainchild. Unless you think MBA's can outprogram actual developers.

[TraderTimm]

What I'm really trying to say is that we use Bitcoin under the premise that it was created with noble intentions for use as a currency free from government control and manipulation. We believe that just because we do. BUT - that might just be what the creator WANTS us to think and this could all be part of some secret plan where the endgame hasn't happened yet. What I'm saying is that we accept that bitcoin exists for a good purpose but that might not be so. The REAL truth is unknown.

Yes, and every atom of oxygen you inhale may actually be seeded with the mind-control drugs of.. < insert paranoid nightmare >

You don't exactly have any kind of "insightful" look into bitcoin, more like the ramblings of a paranoid person wandering the street. Get back to us when you have something real, eh?

[Operatr]

I am of a firm belief "Satoshi" is a group of developers. It seems much more rational that a group of 2-3 experts created this over one lonewolf genius techno-rebel with 100% mastery of cryptography, economics, and programming. There is some evidence to support this with the patent applications and domain registration details for bitcoin.org. There is a thread about it here somewhere but Im too lazy to go find it.

Even so, for this gift, I hope they are all filthy rich. Bitcoin is open source, no one has ever found anything linking it to some kind of fraud or backdoor into their pockets. Someone had to start the blockchain, they were the first, and Bitcoin was first, simple as that. It is easy to assume they mined a lot of coin themselves in those early days. They worked hard when Bitcoin was worth nothing but the sake of the experiment itself. I would rather futurist philanthropists be the rich ones than corporate bankster scumbags. Hopefully they use their new fortune to drive similar open source ventures later for the betterment of the world.

These arguments over Satoshi's fortune make it sound like he/she or they should give the BTC back or something. Why is it a problem that they struck gold with their creation or that they profited from their good work? It can't be stated for sure they even had any idea Bitcoin would become what it did 3 years ago when the coins were just a curiosity and not a usable currency in any form.

[gmaxwell]

The inscription - "Strength in Numbers"...

And that was how satoshi became the first victim of a reorganization.

[wtfvanity]

Newest gossip I think I heard regarding this subject was Satoshi = Jed McCaleb

Creator of Edonkey2000. A p2p file sharing system. Creator of MtGox. Fascination with Japanese for some reason. And now CTO over at ripple.

[wtfvanity]

Here is something interesting taken from edonkey as well. It's talking about it's improvements over the popular napster of the day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDonkey2000

A third improvement compared to Napster was the use of file hashes instead of simple filenames in search results. File searches initiated by the user were keyword-based and matched against the filename list stored on the eDonkey2000 server, but the server returned a list of filenames paired with the hash values of those files to the client. When selecting a file from the list presented to the user, the client would actually initiate a download by hash value. This meant that a file could have many different filenames across different peers, but would be considered identical for purposes of downloading if its hash was the same.

Hmmm, Jed was integrating a hashing function into P2P back in 2000. Interesting

[Exoskeleton]

I actually thnk he might have nailed it here. Wow 

If he is not the man himself I think you might have a member of the core team (2-3 people?)

If I cared more I would look into it. Thats ok because Im sure someone else will figure it out someday. I honestly think bitcoin is better off if we don't know anyways. I feel like knowing he invented it alone would somehow cheapen it. People like the mystique of an unknown developer. If we knew who it was and they had a bad rep...

[aceking]

the same question again and again
why we should care ?

[thebaron]

I am of a firm belief "Satoshi" is a group of developers.

I've seen this statement a few times now and agree that there was a group. But I think Satoshi is the code name of one of the original developers in the group, not the group itself.

[QuestionAuthority]

the same question again and again
why we should care ?

Of course we should care. He's the Messiah and unless we find his other scrolls we will never be able to pin down a date for the rapture.

[Geez]

I think we can all be pretty sure that Satoshi Nakamoto is not a real name. "Satoshi" can be translated into the English word "guidance".

One of the reasons why Bitcoin as a decentralized system can work is because there is nobody who controls and owns it. That's I think one of the reasons why Satoshi disappeared and also wanted everyone to forget about the "mysterious founder" thing. He just wants this Bitcoin thing to work out.

[escrow.ms]

Probably he's reading this thread now.  Who knows 

[iCEBREAKER]

the same question again and again
why we should care ?

Of course we should care. He's the Messiah and unless we find his other scrolls we will never be able to pin down a date for the rapture.

Satoshi published an autobiography, but nobody on Earth can decipher it.   

[BTC Books]

the same question again and again
why we should care ?

Of course we should care. He's the Messiah and unless we find his other scrolls we will never be able to pin down a date for the rapture.

Satoshi published an autobiography, but nobody on Earth can decipher it.   

Mmmph.  The Voynich Manuscript.   

[EBM]

If BTC succeeds, Satoshi does not want to be found.

If BTC goes titsup, Satoshi REALLY does not want to be found.

There are existential risks to BTC. It may be the v 1.0 of cryptocurrency that ultimately fails, with something else taking its place.

Maybe all crypto will fail, and nothing takes its place.

Maybe it succeeds, and becomes the world's reserve currency.

However it pans out, nobody can blame Satoshi for avoiding the limelight. Anyone with a brain would do the exact same thing.