Could Satoshi ever spend his Bitcoins?

[phathash]

Some speculate Satoshi has as many as 1M+ Bitcoins. Could he ever spend them without attracting frenzied tx-attention/investigation or spend them without causing a run on the currency? Could he keep his anonymity?

10 years from now with 18m Bitcoins in existence, Satoshi might have 6% of all Bitcoins. Part of the Bitcoin Oligarchy. However, this is not all bad. Larry Ellison is estimated to be worth $36b and his Randian influence (like it or not) on the world is still limited. If Satoshi was worth $36b in 2022, Bitcoin would have a market capitalisation of $600b. Bitcoin would be causing waves, and each Bitcoin would be valued at $30k each.

Some speculate Satoshi is not an individual, but rather a group. Perhaps this group has good intentions and want to make the world a better place. Curiously, Larry's personal fortune is on par with the endowment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Perhaps "Satoshi" might start offering BTC bounties to make the world a better place. Think X PRIZE? A cure for Malaria?

[Jon]

Whatever Satoshi is, I think it's certain that it has plans for its amassed fortune related to furthering Bitcoin. It would of spent it by now otherwise, methinks.

It keeps me confident in the future.

[Jon]

if satoshi is human and humans make mistakes, i think it's possible a large number of his private keys have already been lost permanently.

It was self-important enough to create an untraceable identity. I am sure it assigned the same importance to its Bitcoins as well.

[phathash]

if satoshi is human and humans make mistakes, i think it's possible a large number of his private keys have already been lost permanently.

I've considered that. However, some have speculated quant/s had to be involved. Could this really be the work of one man? Perhaps this group knew exactly what was going to happen. Under such a scenario, such carelessness could not have happened.

The coins have not been spent. They might have a purpose.

[Jon]

if satoshi is human and humans make mistakes, i think it's possible a large number of his private keys have already been lost permanently.

I've considered that. However, some have speculated quant/s had to be involved. Could this really be the work of one man? Perhaps this group knew exactly what was going to happen. Under such a scenario, such carelessness could not have happened.

The coins have not been spent. They might have a purpose.

The code has been found to be meticulous. I think we are dealing with some high-level shit here. As for who and what, it's unknowable. Just buy some coins and enjoy the ride.

I, for one, thank our influential benefactors. 

[phathash]

The code has been found to be meticulous. I think we are dealing with some high-level shit here.

Whatever happens with Bitcoin, I look forward to reading about the origin of its development in my life time. It took 30 years for the story of Bletchley Park to be released to the public.

In this era I don't think secrets can be held for that long.

[Gabi]

if satoshi is human and humans make mistakes, i think it's possible a large number of his private keys have already been lost permanently.

It was self-important enough to create an untraceable identity. I am sure it assigned the same importance to its Bitcoins as well.

Back then bitcoin was just an experiment, bitcoins were mostly worthless, who know how many test they did with wallets and private keys?

[Technomage]

Indeed I find it likely that at least hundreds of thousands of bitcoins were lost during the early days. People seem to lose them occasionally even today when they are actually worth quite a lot. Back then they were worth basically nothing so it's plausible that large amounts of coins could have been lost.

[DeathAndTaxes]

if satoshi is human and humans make mistakes, i think it's possible a large number of his private keys have already been lost permanently.

I've considered that. However, some have speculated quant/s had to be involved. Could this really be the work of one man? Perhaps this group knew exactly what was going to happen. Under such a scenario, such carelessness could not have happened.

The coins have not been spent. They might have a purpose.

The code has been found to be meticulous.

Um the concept is amazing.  Beyond amazing.  Satoshi (individual or group) solved a large number of problems considered unsolvable and put into place a lot of elements which provide future security and enhancement.

However the code (translating that amazing concept into lines of code) is not meticulous.  It is buggy, poorly documented, often times poorly implemented.  The version you see now has involved tens of thousands of hours of work by post Satoshi developers and still is pretty "ugly" as codebases of that size go.

[DeathAndTaxes]

It was self-important enough to create an untraceable identity. I am sure it assigned the same importance to its Bitcoins as well.

I doubt it.  The early days of Bitcoin was mostly an academic experiment.  Even the 10K BTC pizza didn't happen until years later when Bitcoin at least had gained the potential for future adoption.  I doubt early wallets were well protected.

I don't even think Satoshi believed Bitcoin (the version he released) would go this far.  Everything about the paper, early writing, launch indicates it was more a "proof of concept".  Then again if one of those early mining rewards ever gets moved/consolidated then we will know for sure.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Nobody has used proof of work to build a consensus in a distributed network (currency or otherwise).  That is kinda the cornerstone of Bitcoin.  The rest is pretty routine p2p functionality stuff (node detection, data relaying ,etc).

[triplehelix]

where does the idea that satoshi has 1m coins come from?

[RodeoX]

As far as I know Satoshi doesn't own a single bitcoin.

[FreeMoney]

Then again if one of those early mining rewards ever gets moved/consolidated then we will know for sure.

Not really. If he moves a few they might be some of the only ones he has.

I really doubt he lost them all, that would be pretty hard to do considering even after it was obvious they were going to be worth -something- you could still get them daily with a CPU.

[Daily Anarchist]

You guys really think the genius who brought us Bitcoin was stupid enough to lose a gazillion Bitcoins?

This guy knew he was creating something that could/would bring down the global banking cartel. He knew he would be a target. Any smart target would wait to move his coin until it becomes extremely safe to do so. You think he's going to buy some alpaca socks and have them shipped to his house? Or sell his coins on Mt. Gox?

No, he'll patiently wait until the the empires of the world come crashing down and we live in a much more free and peaceful planet before he comes out and exposes himself and his extremely vast fortune. At least that's what I would do.

[rjk]

You guys really think the genius who brought us Bitcoin was stupid enough to lose a gazillion Bitcoins?

This guy knew he was creating something that could/would bring down the global banking cartel. He knew he would be a target. Any smart target would wait to move his coin until it becomes extremely safe to do so. You think he's going to buy some alpaca socks and have them shipped to his house? Or sell his coins on Mt. Gox?

No, he'll patiently wait until the the empires of the world come crashing down and we live in a much more free and peaceful planet before he comes out and exposes himself and his extremely vast fortune. At least that's what I would do.

I'm still waiting to see actual blockexplorer evidence of his supposed wealth.

[Daily Anarchist]

You guys really think the genius who brought us Bitcoin was stupid enough to lose a gazillion Bitcoins?

This guy knew he was creating something that could/would bring down the global banking cartel. He knew he would be a target. Any smart target would wait to move his coin until it becomes extremely safe to do so. You think he's going to buy some alpaca socks and have them shipped to his house? Or sell his coins on Mt. Gox?

No, he'll patiently wait until the the empires of the world come crashing down and we live in a much more free and peaceful planet before he comes out and exposes himself and his extremely vast fortune. At least that's what I would do.

I'm still waiting to see actual blockexplorer evidence of his supposed wealth.

I doubt he used one address for all of his mining.

[ribuck]

I doubt he used one address for all of his mining.

Even if Satoshi had wanted to use one address, it would not have been possible. There were no mining pools back then, and each generation creates a new private key.

All that we know for sure is that Satoshi mined the first block.

[Daily Anarchist]

I doubt he used one address for all of his mining.

Even if Satoshi had wanted to use one address, it would not have been possible. There were no mining pools back then, and each generation creates a new private key.

All that we know for sure is that Satoshi mined the first block.

This story has all of the makings of a post-apocalyptic religious text.

[DeathAndTaxes]

This story has all of the makings of a post-apocalyptic religious text.

In the beginning there was only the endless fiat and the masses cried out in agony from the persecutions inflicted upon them by the FED. The Satoshi said let their be a block and there was a block and it was good.  The world was divided between the fiat and the block and it was good ...

[dooglus]

Even if Satoshi had wanted to use one address, it would not have been possible. There were no mining pools back then, and each generation creates a new private key.

The first 70460 blocks all used different generation addresses.  The first repeated generation address was in blocks 70459 and 70460:
http://blockexplorer.com/address/15w6iQpfmsKwHswaUoWNWhyjAftrU1b3yB

That was over 18 months after the genesis block, but 4 months before slush accounced his mining pool:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1976.0

[Daily Anarchist]

This story has all of the makings of a post-apocalyptic religious text.

In the beginning their was only the endless fiat and the masses cried out in agony from the persecutions inflicted upon them by the FED. The Satoshi said let their be a block and there was a block and it was good.  The world was divided between the fiat and the block and it was good ...

+1

[disclaimer201]

You guys really think the genius who brought us Bitcoin was stupid enough to lose a gazillion Bitcoins?

This guy knew he was creating something that could/would bring down the global banking cartel. He knew he would be a target. Any smart target would wait to move his coin until it becomes extremely safe to do so. You think he's going to buy some alpaca socks and have them shipped to his house? Or sell his coins on Mt. Gox?

No, he'll patiently wait until the the empires of the world come crashing down and we live in a much more free and peaceful planet before he comes out and exposes himself and his extremely vast fortune. At least that's what I would do.

Bitcoin or not, I highly doubt there will be 'a much more free and peaceful planet' in the near or not-so-near future. Bitcoin won't solve the problem of human greed in any way. The industrial revolution and energy affluency (ie oil) as we've seen in the 20th century developed world did not lead to a materialisation of utopian visions of the 19th century. For example, you can read about credit cards a century before they were invented in novels such as Edward Bellamy's novel "Looking Backward 2000-1887". In the novel, many of the problems of the 19th century were 'solved', while actually creating a much less free and technocratic state some would label a dictatorship. The problem will always be the human condition, questions of wealth distribution and political will, and frankly, I'm quite scared of any of such utopian 'solutions' for we also have a lot to lose.

I strongly support bitcoin for its emancipatory function, but who can really say what would be the end result of a world without banks? It was a great coincidence less than 200 years ago that civilization happened to develop from a stratified society to a modern society based on functional differentiation. It was in no way natural that society would develop in that direction. Functional differentiation is a term used by a 20th century sociologist named Luhmann. It means, nowadays it doesn't  matter by fare where you come from or what family you were born into. A nobleman in the middle ages with a lot of spare-time at his hands, would have had high chances to be select for whatever important position. Nowadays, if you need an expert in whatever field, you'd most likely hire someone who has learned his profession, for example a highly specialized computer programmer. Someone with skills to write in Turbo Pascal won't do. My point is the creation of markets, early trading companies and banks giving out loans and creating investment possibilities were very important if not crucial for this shift from one society-form to another. Who can really say what happens in a world without banks, or far worse during the transfer towards it. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I think it's necessary to comment on overly enthusiastic, unreflected statements as the one above.

[finway]

Can't be.

[Daily Anarchist]

You guys really think the genius who brought us Bitcoin was stupid enough to lose a gazillion Bitcoins?

This guy knew he was creating something that could/would bring down the global banking cartel. He knew he would be a target. Any smart target would wait to move his coin until it becomes extremely safe to do so. You think he's going to buy some alpaca socks and have them shipped to his house? Or sell his coins on Mt. Gox?

No, he'll patiently wait until the the empires of the world come crashing down and we live in a much more free and peaceful planet before he comes out and exposes himself and his extremely vast fortune. At least that's what I would do.

Bitcoin or not, I highly doubt there will be 'a much more free and peaceful planet' in the near or not-so-near future. Bitcoin won't solve the problem of human greed in any way. The industrial revolution and energy affluency (ie oil) as we've seen in the 20th century developed world did not lead to a materialisation of utopian visions of the 19th century. For example, you can read about credit cards a century before they were invented in novels such as Edward Bellamy's novel "Looking Backward 2000-1887". In the novel, many of the problems of the 19th century were 'solved', while actually creating a much less free and technocratic state some would label a dictatorship. The problem will always be the human condition, questions of wealth distribution and political will, and frankly, I'm quite scared of any of such utopian 'solutions' for we also have a lot to lose.

I strongly support bitcoin for its emancipatory function, but who can really say what would be the end result of a world without banks? It was a great coincidence less than 200 years ago that civilization happened to develop from a stratified society to a modern society based on functional differentiation. It was in no way natural that society would develop in that direction. Functional differentiation is a term used by a 20th century sociologist named Luhmann. It means, nowadays it doesn't  matter by fare where you come from or what family you were born into. A nobleman in the middle ages with a lot of spare-time at his hands, would have had high chances to be select for whatever important position. Nowadays, if you need an expert in whatever field, you'd most likely hire someone who has learned his profession, for example a highly specialized computer programmer. Someone with skills to write in Turbo Pascal won't do. My point is the creation of markets, early trading companies and banks giving out loans and creating investment possibilities were very important if not crucial for this shift from one society-form to another. Who can really say what happens in a world without banks, or far worse during the transfer towards it. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I think it's necessary to comment on overly enthusiastic, unreflected statements as the one above.

Modern states as we know them cannot sustain themselves without massive counterfeiting. If the world turns towards free-market currency, the rest of the economy will follow, including roles traditionally held by governments.

[Raize]

It is my belief that Satoshi has spent at least some of his Bitcoins. I think he (or the team behind the name) did so in June of last year and possibly February of this year. This is from analysis of Bitcoin Days Destroyed. I also think a significant player (perhaps Satoshi, but probably someone else that is/was a major player) also sold a significant number of Bitcoins in mid-November in order to combat the bid-waller. I'm not entirely certain why as they did so at a significant loss evidenced by the subsequent rise over the next few months.

It also appears from Bitcoin Days Destroyed that an old miner also moved coin in mid-February of this year. It appears that it was used to game Bitcoinica. It is probably this person that I'm interested in the most due to the fact that they seem to be privy to Bitcoinica's business model and gamed it quite efficiently.

These are, of course, unconfirmable, but that's what my amateur analysis leads me to believe. I'd welcome anyone to look at the evidence of what happened with Bitcoin Days Destroyed at these three points in time and events surrounding these dates to corroborate what was going on.

Evidence: (very old miners, June 2011 and February 2012)
http://blockchain.info/charts/bitcoin-days-destroyed-min-year

(somewhat major miners, November 2011)
http://blockchain.info/charts/bitcoin-days-destroyed-min-month

I know there has been talk of this mystery miner that has been mining huge amounts without including transaction fees:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67634.0

Given that in February someone sold a significant amount of old coin (>1 year in age), it is entirely possible that this was Satoshi or an older miner that then spent that money to set up a huge sASIC or FPGA array that we now attribute to this mystery miner starting in early March 2012.

These are just suspicions. I want to make it clear I don't claim to know anything for certain, but it would not surprise me if these were related.

Even if the MM is Satoshi (or the group we call Satoshi), I'm 100% behind these actions as they continue to nurture Bitcoin in new and interesting ways.