How do we really know how many bitcoins does satoshi have?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Since we know very few things about that person, I don't get how we assumed that he has 1.000.000+ million bitcoins. Did we? Or there's a proof? Because even on 2010-2012 (last years that was active and the bitcoin network didn't need that much CPU) he would need to mine at least 20.000 blocks. Aren't they too much?

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[o_e_l_e_o]

We don't know how many coins Satoshi mined. There have been educated guesses, but there is no definitive proof.

The number of 1 million coins that you often see attributed to Satoshi is based on the "Patoshi pattern". In simple terms, there are around 22 thousand early mined blocks which follow a specific pattern of incrementing their ExtraNonce field, and it is thought that these blocks were all mined by a single entity, which could only be Satoshi. For an in depth look at this argument, see the following blog post: https://bitslog.com/2019/04/16/the-return-of-the-deniers-and-the-revenge-of-patoshi/

[bitmover]

He might still be mining now...
Nobody knows even his name.

You can't really know how many bitcoins an ordinary person has, as anytime someone can create a new address and add balance to it, user a mixer and so on.

[dothebeats]

There's just really not knowing exactly how much he has in total. We are only relying on block data on the early years of bitcoin and where these coins went and how were they distributed. It's not just Satoshi who was mining on the wee days of bitcoin, as there are others who became curious and started hashing on their own.

o_e_l_e_o's  link is actually very informative on where these guesstimates came from. It explains how most people came up with the 1 million figure right now, though again even the Patoshi pattern itself isn't really reliable as there could be many more things that Satoshi tweaked in order to hide his trails--and his coins--even further.

[pixie85]

It's pretty obvious that he has more coins than we know of.

Bitcoin was very easy to obtain in 2010 and there was no indication that he wouldn't get some after disappearing.

Even if he was around for a month after leaving the forum he could very well have a few hundred coins stashed away.

[OneGoLuck]

The patoshi pattern, that o_e_l_e_o referred to,  is a "proof" that Satoshi mined at least about 1M bitcoins with the same machine.

Probably he mined more with other machines, who knows. What we do know, is that he has not touched any of the million coins, and probably newer will.

My guess is that he/she destroyed the private keys to those addresses, because he wanted to distribute the bitcoins fairly among people, and he probably thought that if he takes million coins to himself, people would think it "unfair" and it could work against bitcoin in the long run.
Or prevent bitcoin becoming popular. 

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

It's all speculation how much bitcoin Satoshi have, specially in the early days of his invention.

He could have thousands of addresses, for all we know. We even don't know if he has a main bitcoin addresses to begin with.

One of the well-know addresses is the Genesis Block: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa. Currently holding 68.32761824 BTC

[o_e_l_e_o]

My guess is that he/she destroyed the private keys to those addresses

Although I agree that it is unlikely Satoshi will ever move his coins, and it becomes less likely as time goes on, I would disagree with the quoted statement. I think it is unlikely that Satoshi destroyed those private keys given his previous statements on such a matter:

Sigh... why delete a wallet instead of moving it aside and keeping the old copy just in case?  You should never delete a wallet.

[pooya87]

the only transaction outputs that we know belong to Satoshi are the following 2:

Code:

1) 4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b
2) 0437cd7f8525ceed2324359c2d0ba26006d92d856a9c20fa0241106ee5a597c9

(1) is UTXO from genesis block which we know for sure was created by Satoshi and it is unspendable and (2) is the UTXO Satoshi publicly claimed he owned and is already spent (sent to Hal Finney).
this means Satoshi owns 0 bitcoins. or if you wanted to be more accurate you could see how much balance is currently left in each of these 2 keys (coins people sent in later years). so probably Satoshi owns something about 20 bitcoins.

everything else you see are people throwing numbers around the same way they have been guessing the identity of Satoshi.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Unfortunately I didn't safe the reference for that research. If  I find it again I will place it here.

Literally in the first reply.

[Leviathan.007]

Actually, no buddy known how many bitcoins he might have, there to no proof to say an actual number. In the other hand, he is maybe still mining bitcoins. Since none know his name and his identify, we can't never say how many bitcoins he hold. Also, since he is possibility using multi wallet address, even if we know one address from him, there can be many satoshi bitcoins we don't know about them in other wallets.

[KrisAlex18]

No one knows the amount of BTC does Satoshi's holding but one thing for sure he is holding a huge amount of bitcoin, he is the one who made it so basically he has he is holding it, no one knows the story of Satoshi so no one know how much bitcoin he has. Satoshi is a very private person, he keeps himself a secret for many people because of the things he has done, there are many people who are idolizing him because of what he has done for the community, just like me I really admired him because of what have done, I really want to give thanks on him.

He might still be mining now...
Nobody knows even his name.

You can't really know how many bitcoins an ordinary person has, as anytime someone can create a new address and add balance to it, user a mixer, and so on.

Indeed, we don't have an idea even for the normal person who is holding bitcoin,  what more to the person who made it. No one will tell how much money they are holding.

[michellee]

To be honest, I don't want to know how many bitcoins satoshi has. We don't know, and we don't need to find out because that is not worth doing. The better thing that we need to do is how we can make more and more bitcoin now, so when the price increase, we can sell it at a higher price.

Besides that, we don't know where he stores his bitcoin although we know that some wallet has a large amount of bitcoin. Still, it is his secret, and he will keep it for himself.

[Ucy]

We don't know how many coins Satoshi mined. There have been educated guesses, but there is no definitive proof.

The number of 1 million coins that you often see attributed to Satoshi is based on the "Patoshi pattern". In simple terms, there are around 22 thousand early mined blocks which follow a specific pattern of incrementing their ExtraNonce field, and it is thought that these blocks were all mined by a single entity, which could only be Satoshi. For an in depth look at this argument, see the following blog post: https://bitslog.com/2019/04/16/the-return-of-the-deniers-and-the-revenge-of-patoshi/

Ofcourse. Unfortunately the 1 million btc theory may have been regarded as fact by many or made to sound like fact by some.
I think it should always be seen as mere speculation or theory until something hard-to-contest is presented as proof... even at that, they don't just become true until proven to be really true.

[jhonjhon]

I'd know if that is important to know how much Bitcoin has Satoshi held at his account. Having to know his contribution and its creation is more than enough. Because of his anonymous existence and even have some discovered transaction that Satoshi has made, still couldn't prove that it was for him. How clever he is to know much for him but that is how he promotes anonymity in crypto and that anyone could not know how much exactly he has now or have nothing at all.

[squatter]

My guess is that he/she destroyed the private keys to those addresses

Although I agree that it is unlikely Satoshi will ever move his coins, and it becomes less likely as time goes on, I would disagree with the quoted statement. I think it is unlikely that Satoshi destroyed those private keys given his previous statements on such a matter:

Sigh... why delete a wallet instead of moving it aside and keeping the old copy just in case?  You should never delete a wallet.

I'm not actually sure about that. Satoshi's thoughts on best practices don't really address what he planned to do with his bitcoins. This quote always makes me wonder:

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more.  Think of it as a donation to everyone.

I wouldn't be surprised if those bitcoins are sitting in a bricked wallet. I always thought his intent was to donate that value to the Bitcoin community.

[supine]

No one knows except Satoshi itself we don't even know how many wallet does Satoshi really owns and we don't know if Satoshi is still active on crypto,
So we couldn't really know how many Bitcoin does Satoshi have it is hard to know how many Bitcoin does one person have so what else to someone we don't even really know anything of.
We couldn't even know how many Bitcoin Theymos or those well known member in this forum really have because for sure they have some on exchange or in their alt-wallet.

[XEsseKasper]

This is very interesting question, unfortunately without reliable answer. Satoshi is for sure one very rich person, no doubt, but my question is what is his intention with so many coins in his pocket?  Influencing market prices is only one option. What do you think guys?

[jpnl0006]

knowing wht satoshi has as bitcoin solely dependent on the origin of the blockchian wallet that was used to create  bitcoin. At this point in time, it is almost impossible to note which wallet is the main wallet that was used as the first. i consider the quest for the knowledge on how many coins satoshi has as impossible and friutless.

[20kevin20]

This is very interesting question, unfortunately without reliable answer. Satoshi is for sure one very rich person, no doubt, but my question is what is his intention with so many coins in his pocket?  Influencing market prices is only one option. What do you think guys?

Why do you care? Are you scared he might sometime dump his holdings?

This greed some people have is so annoying. Like, if he is holding his coins (or forgot them) and will never use them again, consider them a donation for everyone as he said himself. If he ever dumps them all, consider it another positive aspect as more than probably a million BTC would be redistributed, hence wealth inequality decreases.

Any way you take it, it's a positive thing imo. But why do people care at all and hope so much that he doesn't have a single coin anymore? Do they deserve theirs more than he deserves his?