satoshi is either dead or in prison

[teukon]

There is a night/day difference between buying 10% and selling 10% of bitcoin.  To sell, means the price would crash.  To buy, means the price would shoot up.  I am not sure how high the price would go up if somebody tried to buy 10%, even if somebody could, but it would be well over 100,000 USD per coin. 

My point was: Once a person has finished buying 10% of all bitcoins, they'd be in the same position as satoshi is now.  The attack by a dollar-Billionaire would involve buying today and crashing at some indeterminant future date.

If we're worried about satoshi for his savings, we should also be worried about the potential Hunt Brothers of Bitcoin; wealthy individuals that are considering an attempt to corner the bitcoin market anonymously.  I don't see how satoshi could possibly have designed Bitcoin to prevent this scenario without sacrificing a lot of what makes Bitcoin great.

Also, we know Bill Gates and we know Warren Buffet.  We know their history, we know their motives, and we can understand their mind and fairly accurately predict what they might do.  Even if they tried to buy 1%, and I think it would be a huge deal, it would be well documented, and would be possible, but wouldn't go unnoticed.  The Winklevii actually do own 1% and it cost them a lot and that was when bitcoin was a joke to the world and was dirt cheap.  But it is okay that Winklevii own it, because we know very well who they are.  And it would be okay if Buffet or Gates bought because we know them and can understand them. 

We don't know Satoshi.  We don't know his/her/they real long term plan.  We don't know for sure why bitcoin was created.  It would be very easy for Satoshi to cash out.

This is a fair point.  The better we understand the intentions of the larger holders, the less risk there is to holding Bitcoin.  In this sense, knowing who Satoshi is and what he intends to do would be beneficial.  However, any cryptocurrency which indirectly required all large holders to be well-studied public figures would be inferior to Bitcoin on a far more fundamental level.

Note: I'm not accusing you of such a claim.  My primary criticism of jabo38's post was in the summary:

...he knows that him having 10% is a big problem.  So why would a guy create a perfect money and then also have a flaw created in it.

I certainly agree that satoshi not having all this power would reduce risk for bitcoin holders.  However, this is very much not a flaw in the creation of Bitcoin.  Indeed, the freedom to privately acquire and hold 10% of all bitcoins is a design feature*!

*At least: a simple and natural consequence of intentional design features.

[bryant.coleman]

I can't understand why so many people on this forum talk bad on Satoshi or even hate him? He created and provided us the revolutionary thing, didn't he?

May be they are the ones, who bought Bitcoin at $1,200 per coin. 

They are simply jealous at those guys, who bought Bitcoin in 2010 for $0.001 a piece. And since Satoshi owns the maximum number of coins (close to 1 million), they are also jealous towards him. 

[Mr Tea]

I reckon he's probably just getting on with his life and doesnt want the responsibility and stress that comes with being Satoshi.

[Brangdon]

Satoshi might be an ET who returned to his cloaked spaceship and continued his travels to start Bitcoin on another planet.
If/when he returns you will need at least 10 BTC to be invited on his next flight into deep space.

I think he was human, but that he digitised his personality and then uploaded it. Now it's secretly hidden in the block-chain, distributed through-out the world, his thoughts piggy-backing on transactions. Far from being dead, he's made himself immortal.

[CryptoKilla]

I highly doubt he is either dead or in prison. I'm sure he is on his own private island with hookers and blow having a blast!

[bryant.coleman]

I highly doubt he is either dead or in prison. I'm sure he is on his own private island with hookers and blow having a blast!

Possible. But it is not easy to evade tax, if the BTC to fiat conversion is in the magnitude of millions of USD. But also, if he is 70 or 80 year old, it will be difficult for him to have the blast with hookers. 

[jc01480]

I highly doubt he is either dead or in prison. I'm sure he is on his own private island with hookers and blow having a blast!

Possible. But it is not easy to evade tax, if the BTC to fiat conversion is in the magnitude of millions of USD. But also, if he is 70 or 80 year old, it will be difficult for him to have the blast with hookers. 

Have you HEARD about the STD's among seniors?  OMG...

[silentgwad]

As there is no big player in the bitcoin world that didn't turn out to be a criminal

That troll 

Well, in this post-gox era, seems like most of the big players (Coinbase,Bitpay,Xappo CEO's) are legitimate and experienced professionals

[Quibbler28]

How can he be both dead, and in prison??

[teukon]

Actually bitcoin is by far my biggest investment.  I believe in it that much.  I also don't know a better system to keep a Buffet from owning 10%.  I like bitcoin and I think it is great.  I also want to be honest and real too, it is not perfect.  The Satoshi situation requires huge trust in Satoshi, and this is ironic given it is a "trustless" system.

+1

Anyone with serious wealth in Bitcoin is going to want to be completely honest about the shortcomings and risks involved.  There are very real uncertainties which are all too often ignored by overzealous fanboys with little skin in the game.

I wouldn't quite qualify the satoshi situation as "requiring huge trust" myself, but that's mainly because I consider such an event unlikely relative to some nasty market shocks that could follow particular announcements by central bank or government representatives or a serious network issue reaching mainstream attention.

[Unpopped]

I think he is probably just hiding somewhere and never wants to be found.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Satoshi is no longer a person.

Satoshi is an entity that does not exist in the real world that helps bitcoin survive it's problems.

[loewen.brad]

There's really only one thing I can think of as to why his coins haven't moved. He's saving them to give to his family as an inheritance. Plain and simple. He knows that bitcoin is still in its infancy and that selling them now would be a mistake as the technology (and the price) hasn't fully matured yet. Selling off now would mean leaving possibly billions of dollars on the table, which he obviously doesn't want to do.

[chaosPT]

He is not dead or in prison , if you are holding so many coin would you go annomynos ?

I think every one will do , go some where else which not much people know about him and have a great live back after 10 years 

[justusranvier]

The only thing that makes me wonder if hes dead is the fact that he hasnt spent any of his coins. I just cant understand that.

Everybody talks about "Satoshi's coins" as if the only one he has were the ones he mined.

Why would that necessarily be the case?

Suppose Satoshi was independently wealthy before he invented Bitcoin. Maybe he'd already had a pretty successful career before he decided to finish the great work of the cypherpunks that nobody had quite managed to get right yet.

If that were the case, he could have purchased the majority of his coins in the nearly days instead of mining them, so that he could spend them freely without everybody freaking out.

[Gianluca95]

Satoshi lives, but we can not know where does he live, he isn't in prison or dead, he enjoys his money now

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Satoshi lives, but we can not know where does he live, he isn't in prison or dead, he enjoys his money now

He would actually have a very hard time in enjoying his money unless he mined coins that we do not know about.

if he were to try to move/sell the coins that are coins that are believed to been mined by him then he would likely not be able to stay anon.

He may have been an early adopter of GPU mining and/or did consulting for ASIC devs and made money that way.

[ajareselde]

There is no need for any of us actualy to know who he realy is.
Bitcoins point is anonimity, and he is the perfect example.
Just wondering how long will it take for another douche to claim he is Satoshi

[joshraban76]

I can't find what is the main point of this topic.

It won't add to us anything, lets just mind our business.

If he meant to appear again, he will, other than that, we have to suit our own-selves.

[loewen.brad]

Just wondering how long will it take for another douche to claim he is Satoshi

I am Satoshi Nakamoto.