Slightly offtopic-ish but: Does anyone know the wallet ID that his 'million' BTC are apparently sitting in?
It's a whole bunch of addresses dating from the early blocks mined since 2009. Most of those blocks are Satoshi's.
And just to add; apparently Satoshi was the only one (or at least one of only a few) who didn't choose to combine his mined coins into a few large addresses. So the coins that he mined are distinguishable from other early adopters who mined back then.
Well firstly I do not think that he would compromise himself due to this. It would take time to sell out 1M Bitcoin and his ID would probably get revealed.
Secondly we would face enormous problems. Bitcoin is just not at the stage where it could easily accept Satoshi cashing out. Maybe once we have hundreds of people on board, it won't even matter because people would still want to buy in?
Uhh... Hundreds of people on board? You mean hundreds of thousands right? And even then, 1 million BTC is still A LOT. That's over 1/20th of the supply. It would still completely devastate the price. In fact, he probably wouldn't even be able to sell all 1 million BTC at once simply because he would run out of sell orders to dump his coins into (yes even the ones at 1 cent!).
First of all, how many coins Satoshi really have? Do we have good numbers of his wealth? Is that 1% of all coins more or less? Secondly my opinion is that Nakamoto created bitcoin but he will never interfere with it again, he will be quietly watching its creation from far away. It seems that Op thinks than early adopters are unfairly rewarded...
I think that basically there is not enough depth market for that huge amount of bitcoin
But he could create an auction and he would probably sell them.
Just disgressing,nobody has 1million bitcoin, not even satoshi
The most common figure is 1,000,000 coins, or slightly less (e.g. 900,000 coins). The number was deduced by looking at the addresses containing 50 BTC which were mined by Satoshi in the early days of Bitcoin and left untouched since then.
First of all, how many coins Satoshi really have? Do we have good numbers of his wealth? Is that 1% of all coins more or less? Secondly my opinion is that Nakamoto created bitcoin but he will never interfere with it again, he will be quietly watching its creation from far away. It seems that Op thinks than early adopters are unfairly rewarded...
He can have 10 % of all the coins very easy to be more. Maybe 2 million coins.
I suspect he sold a lot to lower the diff /btc rocket to the moon. The op's thought game is not going to happen since I think he already sold many coins to get the price down to 180 around Jan 13 of this year.
I suspect he sold a lot off around sept 10 of last year dropping the price down again
And I suspect he sold a lot off around apr of last year dropping the price
finally when coins took off in apr of 2013 I suspect he off loaded then.
While I am picking 4 of the 5 major crashes being caused by him most likely it was only 2 of them . He has no need to crash the market right now and he won't.
@ op why not ask of the 5 biggest crashes of btc price how many did Satoshi cause.
For those that say but those big accounts are not touched. Here is how you do it . I Satoshi go to a friend hold newer coins in smaller accounts and tell him cash out. bang instant money and a btc price drop . All the while the big 100,000 coin account from 2009 just sits.
There are people that owned entire city blocks on handshake deals. So Satoshi could do the same. Maybe Satoshi and bitmaintech are in partnership. Last winter bitmaintech sold a big amount of coins. maybe they did it for Satoshi.
There are no big accounts. Just thousands of small accounts which have remained untouched. It's possible that he could sell 20,000 individual private keys or his wallet.dat file containing 20,000 individual private keys to a friend in exchange for fiat but the buyer would have no way of knowing whether Satoshi has or hasn't kept backup copies of the private keys or wallet which would make the coins not truly "theirs" since Satoshi would still retain shared control. And if the buyer moved them, then that would be instantly noticeable by looking at the blockchain.
To start with, if I was Satoshi I wouldn't cash out
But playing this scenario... Pretty impossible for him to remain anonymous. Even if he sold the coins OTC with an alias, and with fiat coming in through a fake account of some sorts...
I think the only way to remain relatively anonymous and sell those addresses with big balances would be selling the private key directly to someone, through a trusted intermediary. But that intermediary can quickly become untrusted.
He could also sell the coins at a small discount to "buy" anonimity
Just some thoughts...
As I already mentioned above, it's impossible to know if the seller still retains copies of the private key(s) when buying a private key. And if they moved the coins, then that would be visible on the blockchain and would defeat the whole purpose of selling the private keys as opposed to simply doing a conventional sale since the coins are going to be moved anyway.
Satoshi will never sell. If you ever created revolutionary technology after years of efforts, you would treat it as your kid. Satoshi will die before he sells a single BTC, for the goal is to not even need to sell to adquire any commodities.
Satoshi selling any amount of btc for fiat will be like him saying bitcoin has failed and thats never going to happen
so you're saying he's never going to sell them? what if he found himself in a desperate need of money?
there's only 3 possible reason why Satoshi haven't sold his bitcoins yet
1. he lost access to his own wallet
2. he doesn't need money yet
3. he's dead. (or if my assumption on a certain thread are correct,
deleted/selfdestructed)
btw, he = he/they/it. whichever is correct
I think it would depend on his financial situation. If he was a poorer person, then I can definitely understand and possibly see him selling a few coins while still remaining undetected. Assuming that he didn't abruptly stop mining in 2010, it's only once he starts trying to sell millions upon millions of dollars worth of BTC that it would become noticeable. I wrote about this possibility in another thread
here.
I thought it would never happen, if it really happened means he destroy what has been during this time he fought
I think that if he sold coins he wouldn't sell them all, he would probably sell enough to be able to live from it. He can't just dump $2 million worth of bitcoin and deposit it on his bank account, the feds wold be all over him. He probably waits patiently to see bitcoin grow and be more accepted.
Agreed, although $2 million is still a tiny fraction of what Satoshi owns. The value of his bitcoins surpassed $1 billion at one stage.
I think that basically there is not enough depth market for that huge amount of bitcoin
But he could create an auction and he would probably sell them.
Just disgressing,nobody has 1million bitcoin, not even satoshi
people like to think he has 1 million bitcoin as that is super exciting. satoshi could have dumped his coins at much better price ranges. but then again, i don't believe he has as it would make him less anonymous.
No one is sure how many Bitcoin he might be having but he has created it not for public service. But does anyone have any idea what is the total number of Bitcoin present right now all over the world?
This is probably what you're looking for:
http://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoinsCurrently, there is little over 14 million BTC in circulation. Satoshi is estimated to have slightly less than 1 million BTC.
Nice link. For those who can't be bothered to read it, the important part is this:
This is how I will do it :
1. I would identify say 30 000 "poor" people and true Bitcoiners and give them some coins. {This will keep the NSA or whoever is tracking me, busy for a long time....}
2. I will also split those coins into smaller amounts... and start to mix.
3. I will fund my travelling expenses from the first batch of mix coins. {Staying on the go, paying for everything in fiat}
4. I will not convert huge amounts of coins in one go... it will hurt the price too much.
5. I will then "create" my own mixing software {remember, we are dealing with a skilled individual here} and then mix the remaining coins and then destroy the evidence. {Logs}
6. Once these coins are broken up, I will slowly extract small amounts from different locations around the world.
When I have travelled the world and I helped all my friends and contributed to the need of the poor. {Paying it forward} ... I will die in peace, in a bed on a island, with a grin on my face.
If Satoshi ever chose to move his coins (mixed or not) then this would be instantly visible from the blockchain. The news that Satoshi is possibly preparing to cash out would depress the price significantly since people would be preparing for a massive dump before it even happened. Satoshi wouldn't get anywhere near the current market value for his coins. By the time he is in the airport and ready to begin his traveling, BTC might be trading at $30 per coin.
It's funny that one of the most favourite topic of newbies is the satoshi stash.
In reality he couldn't really sell it anywhere near the market price, as soon as those coins would move the markets would crash immediately.
Definitely.