Implications of Satoshi holding 10% of bitcoins

[FreeMoney]

I think Satoshi whoever he/they are, chose to keep significant amount of BTC to protect the economy against an attack.
Such attack would consist of first buying huge amounts of BTCs making value skyrocket and then dumping it making value plummet. Someone with a lot of BTCs could smooth things out preventing panic

How? By selling more coins?

Now if he's rich in other assets from selling some then he can reabsorb the evil mass unleashing of coins I guess.

He could use his coins to protect us from thugs and such. Maybe build Galt's Gulch.

[flug]

I think Satoshi whoever he/they are, chose to keep significant amount of BTC to protect the economy against an attack.
Such attack would consist of first buying huge amounts of BTCs making value skyrocket and then dumping it making value plummet. Someone with a lot of BTCs could smooth things out preventing panic

That's what I choose to believe too.

It's actually quite a convincing argument, because the scenario of someone buying up 1000000 BTC to attack the Bitcoin economy and Satoshi defending it is far likelier than the scenario of Satoshi attacking his own creation or his wallet being stolen.

[URSAY]

Surely Satoshi and the developers are so elite that they above the need for spendable currency.  LOL.  Ninjas right???  Ninjas that live off the land???  Ha.

[Littleshop]

I imagine him waiting until Bitcoin saturates the planet, buying a sandwich, securely deleting his wallet, and moving on to his next adventure.

That will be a story cooler than any Hollywood movie.

Indeed.

Here's more:

The sandwich shop boy happens to be a block chain geek and notices that he's selling a sandwich (spoiler: to a woman) for the first coins ever minted, but he doesn't say anything. He is inspired and leaves the sandwich shop to do amazing thing X.

I like that.  He also might make some of us rich by buying stuff (even small stuff) from our online stores.  Now we have collectable bitcoin with a touch of Satoshi.  I can only dream. 

Of course I have never checked my coins so I probably already spent it!

[crackpotjim]

I think Satoshi maybe attempting to inflate the price by providing support to the market with large buys just below market price and smaller buys up front. On Sat, as everyone was expecting a correction there was too much selling pressure to hold it up and he had to let it slide, possibly the 17,00BTC that people keep talking about was sold by another early adopter and he wasn't willing to absorb it.

I saw a couple of times on the way down there would be multiple $100,0000 buys which would quickly vanish when it was clear that price wasn't going to hold. I just don't see anybody risking that kind of money, unless they have a vested interest in bitcoins success and doesn't have as much to loose.  Satoshi probably can't sell a large volume at the moment, while keeping his anonymity, he needs to wait for the price to increase and then he can sell of less for higher value. It's also his creation and he with out a doubt wants it succeed.

At $10 I think he finally managed to prevent the price falling through the floor and helped it quickly rebound,  confidence is now partially restored as people think we have survived the bubble. He may now on be both sides of the order book trying to peg the price around $20 to provide some semblance of a stable economy (until the next boom). Kind of like a bitcoin guardian angel.

[imperi]

I imagine him waiting until Bitcoin saturates the planet, buying a sandwich, securely deleting his wallet, and moving on to his next adventure.

That will be a story cooler than any Hollywood movie.

It was all a prank. None of it was worth anything anyways, it was all virtual, he fooled everyone!

[tonto]

I'm jealous because if I had Satoshi's bitcoins, I would buy this:
 
 http://rinkerboats.com/boats.cfm?model=340
 
It's not too big and gaudy, and goes well at my local lake. 
 
I'm also slightly perturbed at myself that I didn't see bitcoins earlier than a couple weeks ago... normally I'm all over what's "underground" (I know this isn't underground but you know what I mean) and I'm sad that I could be sitting on the small fortune that the early adopters are sitting on, but I missed it *sigh*
 
So now me and my 15 bitcoins are able to buy me another HD 5770 *sigh*

[realnowhereman]

Given that the early generated coins are known to be his, it will be very difficult to spend them without revealing his identity.

This is compounded by the fact that he has so many.  A mixer can only mix if there are a comparable number of coins to mix yours with.

Tricky.  All that money, in exchange for all that anonymity.  Given the trouble that governments would be willing to make for the inventor of bitcoin, he might find that his anonymity is worth more.

[giszmo]

romantic thread ... *sigh*

lets hope Satoshi is romantic, too.

[gigitrix]

I'd love to go down the pub and have a beer with Satoshi, hear what he has to say.

He's buying

[djproject]

This is probably a pipe dream, but I think it would be cosmically wonderful if a side effect of Bitcoin were the creation of a new generation of billionaires and trillionaires, created not by greed or by inheritance, but by idealism.  I would prefer Satoshi over a lot of the current multi-billionaires we have!  Imagine, Bitcoin a deus ex machina for the miserable state of affairs around the world.

Yeah, probably a pipe dream.

There are absolute limits to wealth.  At the absolute upper max, you could be the "boss" of every person on earth.  There is no way to be wealthier than that, since money is merely a means of compelling others to do things for you.  Now, already, almost all of us are "servants" of, probably, the top 1% or 2% of the world.  And that 1% or 2% got there by bleeding us dry!  I'd rather be Satoshi's servant, if that's what it comes to.

[datz]

See My Screenplay:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=16137.msg210928#msg210928

[Nescio]

The implication is that he'll be able to buy a boat.  That's pretty much it.

Noah's Ark?

Flug has a point. Satoshi's sandwich acquisition in itself could cause a mass panic. If you are looking at the extremes, having that much coin doesn't help in smoothing out bumps unless you sell some upfront, and I'm sure many are watching for the early blocks like hawks, even if they are in smaller lumps (like 65k or something, which is still major, already). On the other end of the spectrum, Satoshi, whoever he/she may be, does not need to be evil. He could bequeath his wealth to an heir and a few generations later there could be a dynasty of dictators. Or he could be, and the dynasty is planned. Maybe 'Satoshi' is a team of NYC bankers doing the same as they did in 1910, a carefully planned execution of cornering the market before it even exists. We simply don't know.

Then again, supposing Satoshi is a benevolent saint, there is nothing preventing the current elite from simply starting to use Bitcoin too and reestablishing their hegemony. I don't mean buying up real estate on the cheap (or at expense later). Rather, a certain kind of person will do the same kind of thing whatever tools he has at his disposal, and be equally successful at it, because the rest will let them, just as it is now. A turd always floats to the top, regardless. Bitcoin's given technical properties cannot change human nature.

Anyway, it's far more likely no mainstream merchants will ever adopt Bitcoin because of pressure from the established banking system, supported by the occasional FBI raid on anyone falling out of line, starting with the exchanges, perhaps supported by some technical attacks on e.g. the bootstrap IRC channels. I don't believe they will need anything like a 51% attack, but if so, pretty sure some agency can be tasked with putting together the appropriate ASIC farm.

[ribuck]

Last year I offered a bounty of 100 BTC for someone to compile a version of Bitcoin that worked on a 32-bit Fedora system. Satoshi won the bounty, but refused to accept payment from me, saying that he had enough coins already.

Also, if you read through Satoshi's forum posts, it's obvious that he is motivated by the desire to see Bitcoin succeed rather than being motivated by greed or financial ambition.

[flug]

Last year I offered a bounty of 100 BTC for someone to compile a version of Bitcoin that worked on a 32-bit Fedora system. Satoshi won the bounty, but refused to accept payment from me, saying that he had enough coins already.

Also, if you read through Satoshi's forum posts, it's obvious that he is motivated by the desire to see Bitcoin succeed rather than being motivated by greed or financial ambition.

Yes that's my assumption. My original concerns have been answered by the fact that any evil billionaire/state could easily buy up 10% of all bitcoins anyway, so it's a general problem, and Satoshi's holdings of bitcoins are probably the least of our worries.

[chiropteran]

The only serious concern I've found with Bitcoin so far is the probability that Satoshi has one or two million stashed away somewhere. That would represent up to 33% of current bitcoins and 10% of eventual bitcoins.

The problem with this theory is that "one or two million [bitcoins]" is already worth a big chunk of money, namely 20-40 million USD.  If your goal was just to get rich easily from your new currency invention, isn't 20-40 million enough?  I feel like if he was going to just take his money and run it would have happened by now.

[Nescio]

Last year I offered a bounty of 100 BTC for someone to compile a version of Bitcoin that worked on a 32-bit Fedora system. Satoshi won the bounty, but refused to accept payment from me, saying that he had enough coins already.

Also, if you read through Satoshi's forum posts, it's obvious that he is motivated by the desire to see Bitcoin succeed rather than being motivated by greed or financial ambition.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here but all of that could be factored into the plan as misinformation. And other supporters coming forward etc. The end result will have to speak for itself, but by then of course it could be too late.

I feel like if he was going to just take his money and run it would have happened by now.

That kind of numbers would have to be through an exchange and none of them have the liquidity currently, apart from any limiting rules (at $1000 a day it would take over 100 years).

[flug]

If your goal was just to get rich easily from your new currency invention, isn't 20-40 million enough?

I wasn't concerned about the get-rich-easily angle. I was concerned about the power angle, and how much leverage he would have to manipulate markets further down the road. But that power is open to any state/billionaire who buys into bitcoins, so Satoshi's holding isn't a particular problem.

[Jaime Frontero]

one can not manipulate the market without a metric crapton of Bitcoin and USD.

to the best of my knowledge, Satoshi is not wealthy in USD - only in Bitcoin.  not that it matters, because:

Satoshi's Bitcoin holdings appear to remain - as a blockchain watcher above pointed out - unspent and un-exchanged.

therefore:  Satoshi has not manipulated the market, for good or ill.

and anyway, in his position, he'd be a fool to sell in the light.  dark sales for cash through a well-trusted intermediary: get cash, keep stability, maintain anonymity...

[piuk]

one can not manipulate the market without a metric crapton of Bitcoin and USD.

to the best of my knowledge, Satoshi is not wealthy in USD - only in Bitcoin.  not that it matters, because:

Satoshi's Bitcoin holdings appear to remain - as a blockchain watcher above pointed out - unspent and un-exchanged.

therefore:  Satoshi has not manipulated the market, for good or ill.

and anyway, in his position, he'd be a fool to sell in the light.  dark sales for cash through a well-trusted intermediary: get cash, keep stability, maintain anonymity...

Sotoshi could have mined hundreds of blocks that people don't know about. Even if sold just a few it kind of makes sense, if he can't withdraw the money, he might leave in mt.gox to help the market a bit. Or yeah he could just use an intermediary.