The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto, Visionary and Genious

[BTC Books]

Why aren't you using your skills to do something useful?

There is a principle in the universe that what can be done, will be done. I don't think we should blame Sergio if he mines public information. Or should we get rid of Julian Assange, too?  

Sergio --> Assange?  Interesting conflation.  I see no points of congruency there...

[nebulus]

In you paper, you say it like Satoshi out of all of us has the most trust in bitcoin. I think there is an equally valid argument that explains his not cashing out. It is that "for cashing out that mil he need to release his identity." I like the work you are doing though!

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

Hey look, Sergio - you're really good at this blockchain analysis stuff.  Better than anyone I've seen in the past three years, anyway (not that I devote a lot of time to quantifying that).

Why aren't you using your skills to do something useful?

Well, I Do! I own three companies, one is pentatek.com, a leader developer or Neurophisiology Equipment in Latam. Another Certimix.com aims to license my patents regarding Mental Poker Protocols. The third information security company is in stealth state until all our patents have been filled.

For example:  why don't you analyze the recent crash, and separate out all the bitcoin that was used specifically to purposefully harm the bitcoin economy; find out where those bitcoin came from and how they were accumulated; and if the entity(ies) that sold them bought back in or were just cashing out?

And just as an aside that has no impact on anyone else, don't you think MtGox, or one of the big players/speculators with serious money on the line would be willing to pay you pretty well for some verifiable information of that kind?

Bitcoin is my hobby right now, from 2 AM to 4 AM, a few days a week. The kind of block chain analysis you propose requires a lot of effort and precision, testing, double-checking, because it involves criminal acts, cannot be undertaken lightly, something completely different from my dawn hacks.
 
Very few people have asked me for help regarding Bitcoin, and MtGox is not one of them. Bitcoin community is full of hackers and brilliant developers, so I go unnoticed

If MtGox ever ask me to, and the pay is good, it would be nice to do it professionally...


Best regards, Sergio.
 

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

How does this contradict anything at all that I or death and taxes said?  In fact, it seems to __thoroughly__ refute the claim you were making that Satoshi mined alone the first year. Unlike you, however, I'm not going back and editing my posts when people point out that they cannot possibly be correct.

Why do you keep posting all these claims without even bothering to look at the source?

I always stated that Satoshi was mining ALMOST alone. I specially used this vague word in every sentence to state that I could not prove he was alone.

If you analyze the different segments at different slopes in the graph you will see that Satoshi was ALMOST alone at any time, maybe with 3 or 4 other miners with much less capable mining hardware.

GMax: I appreciate you and your work. Let's stop this chicken and egg controversy on the accuracy of things said that is not useful for the remaining Bitcoin forum readers.
Please sent me a private e-mail if you want to discuss more about it.
 

[Etlase2]

Why aren't you using your skills to do something useful?

I think you mean, why don't you do something that doesn't threaten the bitcoin economy. Confirming or nearly confirming that satoshi does indeed have 1m+ bitcoins is not good news for the knob slobbers.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Why aren't you using your skills to do something useful?

I think you mean, why don't you do something that doesn't threaten the bitcoin economy. Confirming or nearly confirming that satoshi does indeed have 1m+ bitcoins is not good news for the knob slobbers.

Price is up $15 since he posted that picture ... maybe market feels better if satoshi has got the keys to the kingdom than god only knows who?

[rpietila]

Price is up $15 since he posted that picture ... maybe market feels better if satoshi has got the keys to the kingdom than god only knows who?

 

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

Price is up $15 since he posted that picture ... maybe market feels better if satoshi has got the keys to the kingdom than god only knows who?

 

I'm really very glad that you all have increased your savings value. I hope the coin goes up much more.
That's a sign that honesty and transparency help valuate the bitcoin. 

I've created my first Bitcoin address today. If you've earned a lot of money and want to send me a tip, here is my public addr: 17mcFB7Xyymd9hxp2bgNPz1ruWsdoPoCnZ

[jgarzik]

This obviously contradicts every word GMaxwell and DeathAndTaxes said about mining during the first year.

Want to correct this hyperbole, now?

[AlphaWolf]

Funny... for being the same person, Satoshi's "clock" sure has a funny way of going backward in time, and then picking up immediately where it left off... or even choosing a different format altogether.  This is all in the first 12 hours of Bitcoin's public existence.  Interesting bits are colored.  Bold is just to make it easier to see the which part is changing.

**EDIT** Added blocks 6-9 for additional context, fixed wrong link on #10..  Block 9 is known to have been mined by "Satoshi".

Block #	coinbase	Link
1	04ffff001d0104	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000839a8e6886ab5951d76f411475428afc90947ee320161bbf18eb6048
...
6	04ffff001d0123	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000003031a0e73735690c5a1ff2a4be82553b2a12b776fbd3a215dc8f778d
7	04ffff001d012b	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000071966c2b1d065fd446b1e485b2c9d9594acd2007ccbd5441cfc89444
8	04ffff001d012c	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000408c48f847aa786c2268fc3e6ec2af68e8468a34a28c61b7f1de0dc6
9	04ffff001d0134	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000008d9dc510f23c2657fc4f67bea30078cc05a90eb89e84cc475c080805
10	04ffff001d0136	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000002c05cc2e78923c34df87fd108b22221ac6076c18f3ade378a4d915e9
11	04ffff001d013b	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000097be56d606cdd9c54b04d4747e957d3608abe69198c661f2add73073
12	04ffff001d010c	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000027c2488e2510d1acf4369787784fa20ee084c258b58d9fbd43802b5e
13	04ffff001d013c	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000005c51de2031a895adc145ee2242e919a01c6d61fb222a54a54b4d3089
14	04ffff001d013e	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000080f17a0c5a67f663a9bc9969eb37e81666d9321125f0e293656f8a37
15	04ffff001d010a	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000b3322c8c3ef7d2cf6da009a776e6a99ee65ec5a32f3f345712238473
...
20	04ffff001d0120	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000174a25bb399b009cc8deff1c4b3ea84df7e93affaaf60dc3416cc4f5
...
25	04ffff001d0141	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000008e35a1d59ea1be8d76683662f47fd13c62a9e347ad5845a26f762026
26	04ffff001d0105	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000041438e52d25bccab8798a92cabafdaad69a071d3d2a41718faf01098
27	04ffff001d0110	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000071350772f98f84babf35502b33d42ee8466d3dde0f376c4120352081
28	04ffff001d0109	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000bb0d9430d3d1bab474be5050342161efcca9f7e45b151bff9a700944
29	04ffff001d010d	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000c57a1b6351208c592eef8eff015d93c899a047fe35b35252a4a59bcb
30	04ffff001d0121	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000bc919cfb64f62de736d55cf79e3d535b474ace256b4fbb56073f64db
...
37	04ffff001d0157	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000ddd96d128e122d1179034ff66c27dc583eb9e8996a0b1779c60c6f86
38	04ffff001d0107	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000007c19ee8e924d3024d58efff50f872aadf256140bb1e3d62fea4fd6dd
39	04ffff001d0109	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000005665d506f6c3ccb5fd98624f9816a8a169f1d2327d1d4d6d3262ad12
40	04ffff001d010e	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000b2f01f399bf503e55f25a1aa51067056d2eb81915cb91976968b69aa
...
50	04ffff001d013f	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000026f34d197f653c5e80cb805e40612eadb0f45d00d7ea4164a20faa33
...
57	04ffff001d017a	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000004ff375707d7128dd2b080da4185727d534ea1b0aeac5877e00547391
58	04ffff001d028200	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000075b4df54f33c4e60cf88c5dd6a6455f16f4fbe220ae81e157ce32ef1
...
63	04ffff001d029f00	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000ebff91c88984bff39511f544a1c4ef6ec4f33e2ea531e47c2685628e
64	04ffff001d0106	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000031975f17c5642a9c7e53ae4201a70a6ba6363036b55497b8754d1866
65	04ffff001d02a100	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000aae47d47b6ff5eda6abab09cd6720684b1368eac70ac4240b3c90250
...
72	04ffff001d02c700	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/0000000082c0abb2875dc690a243dce6cbc856647b6422abbe82f97a3a7b127a
73	04ffff001d0101	https://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/000000008ec9525cb2092c6bd7d1c2580e595bcfa54bac51cf6f0278b242f25d
...

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

This obviously contradicts every word GMaxwell and DeathAndTaxes said about mining during the first year.

Want to correct this hyperbole, now?

Do you mean that I should remove that sentence from the post?
If you or Gavin ask me to do it, then I'll do it.

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

Funny... for being the same person, Satoshi's "clock" sure has a funny way of going backward in time, and then picking up immediately where it left off... or even choosing a different format altogether.  This is all in the first 12 hours of Bitcoin's public existence.  Interesting bits are colored.  Bold is just to make it easier to see the which part is changing.

What you see are different THREADS of the same PC. Possibly two or four threads were running concurrently.
Each thread has it own ExtraNonce, but all threads are started almost at the same time.

[BubbleBoy]

Is the periodic reset due to rebooting the machine ? Each week or so or on a given day ?

[AlphaWolf]

Funny... for being the same person, Satoshi's "clock" sure has a funny way of going backward in time, and then picking up immediately where it left off... or even choosing a different format altogether.  This is all in the first 12 hours of Bitcoin's public existence.  Interesting bits are colored.  Bold is just to make it easier to see the which part is changing.

What you see are different THREADS of the same PC. Possibly two or four threads were running concurrently.
Each thread has it own ExtraNonce, but all threads are started almost at the same time.

Nonsense.  Are you trying to tell me that the threads that found blocks 10-15 were started "almost at the same time", yet the "thread" that found block #12 was 47 X 2^32 hashes behind the one(s) that found #11 and #13?  I call BS.  And what about #58, #63, #65..?

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

Funny... for being the same person, Satoshi's "clock" sure has a funny way of going backward in time, and then picking up immediately where it left off... or even choosing a different format altogether.  This is all in the first 12 hours of Bitcoin's public existence.  Interesting bits are colored.  Bold is just to make it easier to see the which part is changing.

What you see are different THREADS of the same PC. Possibly two or four threads were running concurrently.
Each thread has it own ExtraNonce, but all threads are started almost at the same time.

Nonsense.  Are you trying to tell me that the threads that found blocks 10-15 were started "almost at the same time", yet the "thread" that found block #12 was 47 X 2^32 hashes behind the one(s) that found #11 and #13?  I call BS.  And what about #58, #63, #65..?

No, I didn't mean so. These are probably different machines, My apologize. Deltas of 1 may be threads of the same PC.
 

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

Is the periodic reset due to rebooting the machine ? Each week or so or on a given day ?

I estimate the PC is rebooted every 100 hours or 4 days.

I think this is for backing up wallets, but I'm unsure..

[deepceleron]

Interesting, I was thinking of code to analyze this, who knew miners would pop out like this when graphed! I also am pulling my own stats out with bitcointools, but at a block a second, it takes a while. My stats add nonce, time, a spent status, and # of transactions to the table of extranonces, but I don't thing I will bother with writing my own analysis code.

http://bitslog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/all10-5.jpg (image is wacky so just a link)

I see an interesting aspect, that the extranonce of the non-spending satoshi miner (if it is correct that red=spent and black=unspent) is increasing about four times as fast as others - it's steeper block finding slope indicates that it is significantly lower at block finding than it should be. Remember, computers are not competing against each other during this whole run, they are competing against the difficulty.

I believe this is because this miner is using different code than the released Bitcoin. It may have a getwork-style mining, where multiple CPUs are mining through it, and part of this increases the nonce faster than the block finding rate of the released Bitcoin. The nonce may increase faster if Satoshi was discarding fast block finds to make the block rate more regular (which they are statistically - pull out and analyse one series of increasing extranonces). Something that we see at about 1/10th, and again at 5/8ths of the chart, that the slope changes (along with a daily block rate change), I think that there was some change made in its code or the number of miners configured, maybe Satoshi added something that made the miner inefficient for few weeks and fixed it, or tweaked code to discard any blocks faster than a "heartbeat".

There is one scenario where I think this makes sense: Satoshi created a special "network-supporting" miner. This special always-on miner with it's own code base may have never created permanent keys or had a wallet - in that NOTHING appears spent from it's mining.

Without an always-on miner for people to try out the currency and keep confirmations rolling (and another node for them to connect to), the money would just plain not work. This miner runs different code than the release others are running, evidenced by the identical slopes of everyone else. This may be the "x" IRC username connecting over Tor - it would listen for IP addresses to connect to but normal bitcoins couldn't get it's IP address from IRC.


Another thing interesting is that you can see other black lines in the graph, other people mined for a while with release code and have never spent their generates. We know some people have early 50BTCs, but we can also surmise a few of these lines may be lost coins.

What you see are different THREADS of the same PC. Possibly two or four threads were running concurrently.
Each thread has it own ExtraNonce, but all threads are started almost at the same time.

There is no evidence to support this. In fact this disagrees with your discovery that most mining was done by one rolling extranonce. It may have been Bitcoin #1 + xMiner, as referenced in my previous posting thread. Remember, Bitcoin 0.1.0 doesn't mine unless it has a node connected to it - it counts the nodes, and if the number is 0 or has changed to 0, mining is disabled.

The Satoshi super miner might not have started until Satoshi's normal Bitcoin or another regular Bitcoin user was also connected. Satoshi may have a wallet with his own coins, but never will use the backbone miner's coins. New miner at #64 may be Hal getting Bitcoin working.

[Sergio_Demian_Lerner]

Please take into account that X-Axis is not time, but block number.

Here is the same data, but with the Time in the X-Axis.

[wumpus]

+1 for transparency

Thanks again for the interesting research.

[deepceleron]

Please take into account that X-Axis is not time, but block number.

Here is the same data, but with the Time in the X-Axis.

Yes, that looks about the same due to the regularity of block finds, but it shows the satoshi miner lines as bending less than your previous graph when there is competition also finding blocks and advancing the block count. More transactions happening on the network will also steepen the lines - network activity increases everyone's extranonce counter faster.

The mean block finding rate at difficulty 1 is one block every 4295032833.0 hashes (just a bit more than 2³²).
By analyzing the code, the mean value of independent miner's extranonce increments should be 2.000015 (without transactions or someone else's block finds muddying the increment). That more extranonces are being "used up" by the "backbone miner", we know it does something different than everyone else's bitcoin.

Another interesting thing (hard to do at that low resolution), draw an imaginary vertical line through the graph and see how many miner lines it crosses, there are quite a few at any given point.

There's a few "birds" floating above the second half of the graph, somebody is using a different style of coinbase than difficulty + bignum ("ffff001d" + extranonce bytes + extranonce encoded) or you are parsing it wrong.