Satoshi ..Private key lost?

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

My personal stance on this is that satoshi intentionally deleted the private keys used to receive the early mining subsidies, despite his advice not to delete privkeys ever. His motivation to mine was to bootstrap the network and have transactions confirmed, not hoarding coins. He may be keeping some hundreds/thousands of BTC mined in 2010/2011 but probably those coins have already been moved. So we have both a) he has a lot of coins, b) early subsidies will never move.

Another plausible option is that he keeps them, but plans to cash them out gradually and going backwards in time, starting with the most recently mined blocks, so the market gets no sudden surprise over old coins moving. As older subsidies are spent our suspicion it's him will gradually grow and at some point we'll be totally sure but a lot of time will have passed and the market will have discounted it.

So why wouldn't he just make a huge giveaway and give like 1 BTC to random people? it's way better than just having a shitton of coins that will be lost forever..

[jyakulis]

My line of thinking is with the promissory note access to the bitcoin architecture it would allow for people to say buy a house or a car or property. The note could actually be constructed in bitcoin payments as opposed to dollar values. So, you could start ignoring the fiat price. The note would promote a legal background for larger higher ticket items to be used. What the holder of the property wants to do with the bitcoins or whether the property holder would want to use the bitcoins or accept the note would be completely up to the property holder. On their end the deed or title would be attached somehow to the software.\

It could be a cross group project like legal zoom, multibit, and coindesk.

You would need price stability for such high ticket items over time. Of course you could build in some clauses about price swings as well I would imagine. The idea could be a great one and a truly good way to get the banks out of our houses as well.

I've thought about that as well. But this would be in longer term instruments.

My line of thinking is initially you could set up notes dealing in lump sums which, would be an option on multibit or whatever someone conceives as a program that would work. Let's say you started with just a bitcoin supporter within the community for a car. You would draw up your note and come to some form of agreement between both parties. You could set the terms, payment period, amount etc. The deed would be at one end and the note and esig on the other side of the deal. You could then make the first property acquisition  via the new program.

Then my ultimate end goal here is that if the government may step in and try to challenge the move and try to charge capital gains on the buyer. You would then have access via the court system to challenge their ruling that it's an asset. A legal battle would ensue in the court of common plees. But it's looking given the current environment it would seemingly go unchallenged because when users are buying thing at say newegg I don't believe they are getting charged capital gains.

But in the end I think it would give bitcoin a chance to move from asset to an actual alternative currency.

It could also give miners the opportunity to make large property acquisitions to house their mining hardware. In the long run miners could draw up their own (seemingly) loans for new property for mining hardware based on their bitcoins made per month or whatever if someone was willing to sell the property on the other end. Intially, like i said I see it as lump sum payments. But to me the legal instrument is important to more widespread adoption other than just consumer goods.

[qwerty555]

At this point it may be worthwhile to put in context the 'value " of 1 million mined coins in 2010

Jan 2009 – Jan 2010    basically none    No exchanges or market, users were mainly cryptography fans who were sending bitcoins for low or no value.
Feb 2010 – May 2010    less than $0.01    User "laszlo" made the first real-world transaction – he bought 2 pizzas for 10,000 BTC.[73][74] User "SmokeTooMuch" auctioned 10,000 BTC for $50 (cumulatively), but no buyer was found.
June 2010    $0.08    In five days, the price grew 1000%, rising from $0.008 to $0.08 for 1 bitcoin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bitcoin

or 8000 dollars at a 0.008 price, prior to that is was ZERO and coins were being given away.   If people were concentrating on the concept and development they may well have overlooked the importance of keeping the keys safe with back ups etc for something with ( at the time) such a low ( and often zero) fiat value. Once the value was established and rising they could have said Ooooops I cant access my coins.  An indication of this is.. when did the coins minied stop being sent to those dormant addresses? ( can anyone chk the data?)  If mining chunks  to these dormant addresses stop near or prior to this date then it increases the probability of the inability to access  those coins and due to that mining is subsequently routed to new addresses that they could access ( with a warning to the community to ensure that the private keys are not lost and should be backed up  there is a post re this from Satoshi)  which  have not remained dormant for so many years....... food for more conjecture LOL

Edit

In May 26 2010 Satoshi states that a new address for each payment (coins from mining) is on his list ( of things to do)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154.msg1254#msg1254

Can't we force a user to use a new address for receiving payments?
Every time a payment is received display another Bitcoin address in the address bar. (only transactions via Bitcoin addresses, NOT IPs of course, since that'd be useless, right?)
The actual key would still be kept to ensure that the user would still receive payments of people sending to the same address.
This is on my list.  I will soon make the "Your Bitcoin Address:" window automatically change whenever you receive anything to the address displayed.

June 21 2010 post ( philisophical )

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=198.msg1647#msg1647

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

[uyu833f]

He might be dead as well.

[jmw74]

He might be dead as well.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's possible but there's no reason to think that.

Not communicating is completely consistent with Satoshi's behavior - he was very protective of his identity, so he would have to stop communicating eventually if he wanted it to remain secret.

I strongly believe we'll never see another message signed by him (either a transaction with his early mined coins, or a pgp signed message).  But that's most likely because he doesn't want to, not because he's dead.  I'd say odds that he's stayed alive since 2011 are the same as anyone else his age.  Let's say he's 50.  Based on life expectancy stats, his odds of dying in the last 3 years is about 2%.

[sgk]

What is the probability that the reason for the non movement of Satoshi coins is that the private key has been lost ( and what implications does this have?)?

I think Satoshi is too smart to have lost the private keys. He invented Bitcoin, remember?

The only reason these coins have not moved is because he does not want/need to move them.

[AGD]

He might be dead as well.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's possible but there's no reason to think that.

Not communicating is completely consistent with Satoshi's behavior - he was very protective of his identity, so he would have to stop communicating eventually if he wanted it to remain secret.

I strongly believe we'll never see another message signed by him (either a transaction with his early mined coins, or a pgp signed message).  But that's most likely because he doesn't want to, not because he's dead.  I'd say odds that he's stayed alive since 2011 are the same as anyone else his age.  Let's say he's 50.  Based on life expectancy stats, his odds of dying in the last 3 years is about 2%.

He said this, because Satoshi might be dead and there are a lot of reasons to think that.

[Mewtwo]

- He is afraid of beeing found when he spends one satoshi
- He forgot his wallet passwords
- The harddisk with the wallets crashed
- He is dead

(Most likely in that order)

This is also what I believe, people should just get used to the fact that over 10% of all existing bitcoins are already lost.

[wadili89]

Another plausible option is that he keeps them, but plans to cash them out gradually and going backwards in time, starting with the most recently mined blocks, so the market gets no sudden surprise over old coins moving. As older subsidies are spent our suspicion it's him will gradually grow and at some point we'll be totally sure but a lot of time will have passed and the market will have discounted it.

Those blocks will be tracked. Once a few moved blocks are noted, it will spook anyway.

I think he is never going to use them.

[jmw74]

because Satoshi might be dead and there are a lot of reasons to think that.

Name one reason to think Satoshi is dead.

[Flashman]

He might be dead as well.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's possible but there's no reason to think that.

Not communicating is completely consistent with Satoshi's behavior - he was very protective of his identity, so he would have to stop communicating eventually if he wanted it to remain secret.

I strongly believe we'll never see another message signed by him (either a transaction with his early mined coins, or a pgp signed message).  But that's most likely because he doesn't want to, not because he's dead.  I'd say odds that he's stayed alive since 2011 are the same as anyone else his age.  Let's say he's 50.  Based on life expectancy stats, his odds of dying in the last 3 years is about 2%.

He said this, because Satoshi might be dead and there are a lot of reasons to think that.

I have one reason to think he isn't http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/xn/detail/2003008:Comment:52186

[uyu833f]

He might be dead as well.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's possible but there's no reason to think that.

Not communicating is completely consistent with Satoshi's behavior - he was very protective of his identity, so he would have to stop communicating eventually if he wanted it to remain secret.

I strongly believe we'll never see another message signed by him (either a transaction with his early mined coins, or a pgp signed message).  But that's most likely because he doesn't want to, not because he's dead.  I'd say odds that he's stayed alive since 2011 are the same as anyone else his age.  Let's say he's 50.  Based on life expectancy stats, his odds of dying in the last 3 years is about 2%.

He said this, because Satoshi might be dead and there are a lot of reasons to think that.

I have one reason to think he isn't http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/xn/detail/2003008:Comment:52186

His accounts have been hacked, haven't they?

[Flashman]

That seemed to happen in September, that post was in March, who knows.

[anshar]

He might be dead as well.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's possible but there's no reason to think that.

Not communicating is completely consistent with Satoshi's behavior - he was very protective of his identity, so he would have to stop communicating eventually if he wanted it to remain secret.

I strongly believe we'll never see another message signed by him (either a transaction with his early mined coins, or a pgp signed message).  But that's most likely because he doesn't want to, not because he's dead.  I'd say odds that he's stayed alive since 2011 are the same as anyone else his age.  Let's say he's 50.  Based on life expectancy stats, his odds of dying in the last 3 years is about 2%.

He said this, because Satoshi might be dead and there are a lot of reasons to think that.

I have one reason to think he isn't http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/xn/detail/2003008:Comment:52186

Easily could have been a hack since someone got access to his email which was the same as the one he used to sign up there.

[Willisius]

He might be dead as well.

I don't know why people keep saying this. It's possible but there's no reason to think that.

Not communicating is completely consistent with Satoshi's behavior - he was very protective of his identity, so he would have to stop communicating eventually if he wanted it to remain secret.

I strongly believe we'll never see another message signed by him (either a transaction with his early mined coins, or a pgp signed message).  But that's most likely because he doesn't want to, not because he's dead.  I'd say odds that he's stayed alive since 2011 are the same as anyone else his age.  Let's say he's 50.  Based on life expectancy stats, his odds of dying in the last 3 years is about 2%.

He said this, because Satoshi might be dead and there are a lot of reasons to think that.

I have one reason to think he isn't http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/xn/detail/2003008:Comment:52186

This was clearly the result of someone hacking his email account at gmx. He probably stopped logging into the account around the time that he left the forum which would generally make it easier for a potential attacker to reset his password.

[AGD]

Also Hacker claimed that SN was still alive and he had found proof for his identity in his email history. Seems like this has never been proven to be true, though.

[Febo]

What is the probability that the reason for the non movement of Satoshi coins is that the private key has been lost ( and what implications does this have?)?

I think and am almost positive, since for sure Satoshi looks on Bitcoin as his baby.

So i think if he would lost access to his big wallet, he would let that everyone know. This way everyone would know there are less bitcoins in the game and for miners would be more worth to mine them and bitcoin would be more secure.

The only reason i se he might wait is if there is better timing for this news.

[minime]

u guys are funny

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

his words

[El Emperador]

I think if he's still alive he's just waiting... and waiting patiently.
In the next years he will assess the situation and if there will be the right assumptions maybe he will reveal his identity too.

But, sadly, I think he might have been the late Hal Finney, so in this case he took his private keys in the tomb. 

[J3VVL]

satoshi doesn't care about losing his private keys maybe because he is one of the few people who know how to hack the wallet? why it would be incredible if he built in a back door ! muuuahahaha