For Coinbase Satoshi Nakamoto is a Risk Factor

[dkbit98]

Hmm. True. But I think it doesn't require Satoshi to be literally 100% unmasked to inflict such a damaging event to Coinbase(and to bitcoin's price temporarily). If we end up having a suspect with controversial views that the majority of the masses get convinced is Satoshi (regardless if it's true or not), the effect would be just as bad as the real Satoshi being unmasked.

You mean someone like that clown Craig Wright aka Faketoshi or someone like him?
That could be a danger and all he needs is to bribe some people in government to accept him as real Satoshi even without providing real evidence like signing a message.
Then just broadcast that news on media, TV and internet and you have masses convinced he is the one.
We can see that he is suing everyone who posted bitcoin whitepaper and if some judge rules in his favor... money talks.
Then real Risk Factor should be Faketohi and not Satoshi.

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[mk4]

I don't think it works that way, there are some people in open-source community that said or did very controversial things, and the world didn't stop using their software.

Sure, but there's a difference between some software that only a small minority cares about, and Bitcoin, which is pretty much a household name already, and which is already quite a controversial asset to begin with. This is the same reason we see people dislike Bitcoin just because they dislike the Bitcoin community, which is a pretty pretty stupid way to value an asset.

And with Bitcoin, Satoshi wasn't a developer for more than 10 years, so it's not like he could force his politics onto Bitcoin protocol in a situation like this.

He obviously can't. But the ignorant masses will think otherwise. You'll easily end up seeing "boycott BTC because the creator supports this and that".

You mean someone like that clown Craig Wright aka Faketoshi or someone like him?

*snip*

I wouldn't even count him as a risk; just a nuisance. Him and his team just did stuff so so badly that everyone(besides a really really small number of people) could easily see through his bullshit.

[Leviathan.007]

The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is a risk for any bitcoiner because there will be many abuser to abuse his real identity, this can even put his life in danger also this can put bitcoin in danger. Because bitcoin known half anonymous and bitcoin transactions are known half transparent and one reason of these is the identity of founder. Also, revealing his real identity take negative effect on the price of bitcoin, even in long term.

[dkbit98]

I wouldn't even count him as a risk; just a nuisance. Him and his team just did stuff so so badly that everyone(besides a really really small number of people) could easily see through his bullshit.

I don't mean Craig himself is a Risk Factor, but Faketoshi as some other person who may have support from governments and important individuals for faking his claims.
All they need is to twist the truth just a little bit and masses who don't know anything about Bitcoin will trust anything they hear on the news.

[Vishnu.Reang]

The way I see it: let's say that Satoshi was unmasked and is still alive, and everyone learns that Satoshi is a supporter of a certain controversial politician(let's say, someone like Trump). The people who are passionately against Trump might end up dumping their coins or end up boycotting bitcoin because of that affiliation (even though Satoshi is NOT Bitcoin). Hence, probably ending up with Coinbase taking a hit on their trading volume.

Completely agree. For us, it is better that Satoshi remains anonymous. Bitcoin will definitely take a hit if his real identity is revealed (unless Satoshi turns out to be someone who is completely indifferent to politics such as Grigori Perelman). And it doesn't matter whether he is left-wing, right-wing or Libertarian. There will always be a section who is not happy with his political orientation.

Another risk factor is related to Satoshi's stash. That is close to 1 million BTC, worth $47.5 billion as per today's exchange rate. If those coins are moved, then we can expect an earthquake in the market. Coins sold by the Mt Gox bankruptcy trustee kept the prices suppressed for many months, and they amounted for just a few tens of thousands. And you can imagine what will be the case if 1 million coins are moved.

[hayden.blank]

Coinbase are here for business only so I do not think anyone else care about what they think about their business.

Overall, bitcoin is not depending on a single hand, not even Satoshi Nakamoto. Say we find Nakamoto, and he decides to sell all of his holdings. The worse we will experience is a little price down. The market will recover eventually.

Haven't we seen it all these years?

Indeed! Coinbase is just a business which we shouldnt really care about unless we are using it.. Bitcoin is a different one

[mk4]

I don't mean Craig himself is a Risk Factor, but Faketoshi as some other person who may have support from governments and important individuals for faking his claims.
All they need is to twist the truth just a little bit and masses who don't know anything about Bitcoin will trust anything they hear on the news.

Oh sure; they could have. Faketoshi's media people and Faketoshi himself could've done a far better job of painting his public image of being a cool and composed guy that apparently invented one of the best assets of the past decade; something that I'd think would probably convince the ignorant people slightly a bit more. Instead, we have all of these videos and screenshots of Faketoshi being a total dick lmao; which he really really is. Thankfully they're really really awful.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Oh sure; they could have. Faketoshi's media people and Faketoshi himself could've done a far better job of painting his public image of being a cool and composed guy that apparently invented one of the best assets of the past decade; something that I'd think would probably convince the ignorant people slightly a bit more. Instead, we have all of these videos and screenshots of Faketoshi being a total dick lmao; which he really really is. Thankfully they're really really awful.

It is people like us who unintentionally give publicity to scammers such as Craig Wright. He had his two minutes of fame in the cryptocurrency sector, but he is done for now. Look at his BSV shitcoin. There was a time when it ranked as high as #4 or #5 in Coinmarketcap. Now it ranks #23. And by the end of this year, it will be outside the top-100 list as well. Now Craig Wright is just one of the names in the long list of Satoshi pretenders. We need to ignore his theatrics and move on.

[shield132]

Satoshi is a risk factor for every major crypto-related businesses like Binance, Coinbase, bitpay, etc... Imagine satoshi appeared and it's verified that certain person is Satoshi. He can change the whole situation, one bad word from his side towards Coinbase and their business is fucked forever. He can greatly manipulate the price. People follow to Elon Musk's tweets on dogecoin (meme coin) and imagine what will happen in Satoshi's case, he will be a total game changer. That's amazing at some point, this man (or a team) created one of the most exciting thing in 21th century.

Nicola Tesla is the inventor of the 20th century, personally, I would call Satoshi Nakamoto the inventor of the 21st century. This man gave a new currency to our population!

[masterzino]

We all know that Satoshi associated addresses have a lot of Bitcoins, but is Satoshi really deserving to be in Risk Factor category?

For a company looking at a $100bn valuation, yes - it's a severe risk factor.

Imagine the market reaction if there is a single movement from the addresses associated with Satoshi Nakamoto. Now imagine the market reaction if they sell even a fraction of these coins.

[coolcoinz]

The way I see it: let's say that Satoshi was unmasked and is still alive, and everyone learns that Satoshi is a supporter of a certain controversial politician(let's say, someone like Trump). The people who are passionately against Trump might end up dumping their coins or end up boycotting bitcoin because of that affiliation (even though Satoshi is NOT Bitcoin). Hence, probably ending up with Coinbase taking a hit on their trading volume.

Not only this. Satoshi as a known person is a vulnerability for multiple reasons:
1. He can be targeted as a person
-as a taxpayer
-for political views
-for certain qualities of character (emotionally unstable, nervous, autistic)
-for the place he resides in (e.g. if it happened to be a country like North Korea, Russia, or one of the countries currently at war)
-for sexual preferences
2. He could be attacked physically
-kidnapped
-extorted
-could become a target of intelligence operatives (spied on, converted)
3. He could involuntarily became a market catalyst. Imagine hearing about Satoshi's sickness, hospitalization, car accident, death in his family...

[Darker45]

I think so. Satoshi has become a sort of a demigod. The moment the human identity behind Satoshi is revealed, Bitcoin would cease to be what it is today. Once the mystery is unraveled, everything is burned.

Add to it the fact that Satoshi has more than a million of BTC under his/her/their control. That's tens of billions of USD. It will definitely spread high level of fear across the market. It will bring the market down to a very significant extent. Not to mention that tens or even hundreds of thousands of BTC will probably be dumped by institutional investors and ordinary hodlers alike simply because of that fear.

For me, Satoshi's human revelation is a Pandora's box. It is dreaded. It is full of irony that a lot of people want to know the real Satoshi when in fact their success might spell the end of a certain Bitcoin era, if not Bitcoin itself. And it is my sad belief that a lot are all too willing to take the life of the real Satoshi to protect his/her/their very own creation.

[mk4]

Look at his BSV shitcoin. There was a time when it ranked as high as #4 or #5 in Coinmarketcap. Now it ranks #23. And by the end of this year, it will be outside the top-100 list as well.

While it's slowly but surely getting lower and lower in the list, I'd bet it would actually be in the #50 spot or lower if literally everyone sold off their BSV forked coins. I'm guessing a lot of people simply don't give a crap about selling their BSV hence taking a significant amount of BSV out of circulation.

[Karartma1]

Actually I do agree with coinbase to some extent, the Mare thought of Satoshi Nakomoto owing a lump sum of btc is a risk factor especially when no one knows when he/she will decide to move those btc, I believe satoshi is the full custodian of his own wallet keys and can decide to move his stack at any given time, that is enough to be considered,
I guess staying anonymous is a lot better than being known.

If someone would know how to break into Satoshi's bitcoin wealth, that would be like a nuclear war declaration!
Believing what you believe doesn't eliminate the fact that if Satoshi decides to move those bitcoins that could create some utter chaos on the overall bitcoin economy.
Another known problem is that with the advance of technology, it might be possible to break those private keys and this is something to have in mind too.
So, SN is definitely some kind of risk factor here.

[pugman]

The way I see it: let's say that Satoshi was unmasked and is still alive

Any proof of Satoshi would need to include signing from an early address or staked PGP key, among other things. If this was done, then it makes the chance of the 1 million or so coins linked to Satoshi suddenly re-entering the market rise exponentially. While I don't think such a thing would kill bitcoin, or necessarily even dump the price (as I don't think Satoshi, if still alive and with access to the relevant private keys, would try to dump their entire stash like this), what would happen would be thousands of newbies and weak hands panic selling at the news. This would dump the price, which would affect Coinbase's profits, and therefore their share price. It is only logical for them to disclose such a risk.

Even if Satoshi is alive, we all know satoshi is smart enough to protect his anonymity status and ensure nothing related to his early addresses or staked PGP keys ever pop up.

If satoshi's identity were to ever pop up, the chances of bitcoin dying would be significantly less. It would however expose him as a huge target, I would imagine people would want to use satoshi for their own benefits, forcefully.

My opinion: satoshi's identity is definitely known to some people, at the cost of things we don't know yet or ever will. Considering he has had conversations as satoshi with multiple people online at least, there are for sure some people who know his identity.

As for the topic of whether or not satoshi is deserving to be in the Risk Factor category: Definitely yes.

[sunsilk]

For a big exchange and business such as Coinbase, they really look to that factor as a threat to their business. Just as the news about the whales moving their funds which slept for a long time from wallet a to b, the market reacts and many waves of panic.

And for just a small-time like me, I don't see him as a risk and don't know what to react if it's reported that he has moved his funds, those millions of bitcoins. But for large corporations and businesses that are the same as Coinbase, they really are going to shake if that happens.