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Topic: Why Satoshi's coins will never hit the market - page 3. (Read 5349 times)

hero member
Activity: 525
Merit: 500

But if he sells 10 bitcoins, it really shouldn't be any different than you selling 10 bitcoins or me selling 10 bitcoins.


If only.

If there's anything the last year or more has taught us, it's that BTC holders relish a good panic sell.

Can you imagine if even 1 satoshi moves from his address? The entire bitcoin community would go into meltdown and panic mode. Part of me thinks its probably wise those coins never move but satoshi could do some good with them in the future and I'm sure he'd be wise about how he used or moved them. He wouldn't be stupid enough to just dump them.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3014
Welt Am Draht

But if he sells 10 bitcoins, it really shouldn't be any different than you selling 10 bitcoins or me selling 10 bitcoins.


If only.

If there's anything the last year or more has taught us, it's that BTC holders relish a good panic sell.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
I don't get that mentality. Why would the price crash because satoshi is using his bitcoins?

He was the first miner and it's estimated he must have mined between half a million to one and a half million bitcoins. If he chose to dump them he could clear out all the buy orders on every exchange in an instant. Look at the damage the bear whale did by dumping a tiny fraction of the coins Satoshi mined.

yeah, if he dumps ALL of his coins, that wouldn't be good.

But if he sells 10 bitcoins, it really shouldn't be any different than you selling 10 bitcoins or me selling 10 bitcoins.
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1000
It's noble to think that he/they never intended those early coins to be used and they're in addresses that can never be accessed.  But humans are greedy by nature, and I would be surprised if those coins went untouched for all time.  Hopefully some day they can be put to use for the good of the network (maybe that was the intention all along)...
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1031
Not every single one - but most. Estimates are he mined around 1m coins.

Correct from the extra nonce leak the estimates are around 1 million coins and that would be 20,000 blocks but it was 20,000 blocks over the course of about 18 months.  Bitcoin wasn't worthless by even late 2010 but the later blocks and the earlier blocks show the same lack of movement.   Nobody is disputing that Satoshi mined a lot of the early coins but the articles claim that he intentionally mined with throw away keys isn't supported by any facts.

Sorry, that's a mistake of terminology. By 'throwaway' I don't mean in the technical sense. I mean that he didn't keep them! Like I say, it's not possible to prove that, only disprove.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
Not every single one - but most. Estimates are he mined around 1m coins.

Correct from the extra nonce leak the estimates are around 1 million coins and that would be 20,000 blocks but it was 20,000 blocks over the course of about 18 months.  Bitcoin wasn't worthless by even late 2010 but the later blocks and the earlier blocks show the same lack of movement.   Nobody is disputing that Satoshi mined a lot of the early coins but the articles claim that he intentionally mined with throw away keys isn't supported by any facts.

Quote
And it's interesting that those blocks of 50 were never moved.

It is interesting and I don't think 'satoshi's million' will ever be spent.  If he protected his Bitcoin identity from his real life as well as he protected his real identity from his Bitcoin life then if he died it is very likely nobody who knew him personally even knew he was 'satoshi'.  His coins would have died with him.  It goes beyond just the early 'satoshi' blocks however.  There are about 58,000 block rewards in the first era which have never been spent.  I am just saying none of this supports a claim that he intentionally mined to unknown keys to ensure the coins were destroyed.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1031
It is very simple to look that up.  Look at the first 20 000 blocks on blockchain.info.
There you will see Satoshi's addresses and their contents (indeed mostly 50 coins).

Why do you assume the first 20,000 blocks were all mined by Satoshi.  There were other miners.  Hal Finney even reported solving a block a few weeks after the genesis block and he wasn't the only one.  Also Satoshi did let some information leak.  He used a sequential extra nonce and didn't reset it between blocks.  Using that people have made projections on how many of the blocks in the first year were mined by Satoshi.  Nobody has reached a conclusion that Satoshi mined blocks 0 through 20,000 sequentially.

Not every single one - but most. Estimates are he mined around 1m coins. And it's interesting that those blocks of 50 were never moved. Most other people presumably would have done, including Hal Finney - he says as much.
By the way, Hal Finney also said he then left bitcoin aside for a while (he didn't like the effect CPU mining had on his computer!) and only came back to it some time later. In the early days there weren't many miners.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
It is very simple to look that up.  Look at the first 20 000 blocks on blockchain.info.
There you will see Satoshi's addresses and their contents (indeed mostly 50 coins).

Why do you assume the first 20,000 blocks were all mined by Satoshi.  There were other miners.  Hal Finney even reported solving a block a few weeks after the genesis block and he wasn't the only one.  Also Satoshi did let some information leak.  He used a sequential extra nonce and didn't reset it between blocks.  Using that people have made projections on how many of the blocks in the first year were mined by Satoshi.  Nobody has reached a conclusion that Satoshi mined blocks 0 through 20,000 sequentially.

This is a far better analysis of the early mining.
http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-hashrate.html

Nothing can be proven for certain but they at least limit themselves to the facts in the blockchain.  Reaching the conclusion he never intended to save the keys from the fact that the coins haven't been moved is pretty weak.  We do know that by even Oct 2009 Bitcoin had 'some' value.  ~1000 BTC per dollar so a million BTC would be $1,000 worth.  Sure not a fortune but I don't know anyone who would intentionally destroy $1,000 worth of BTC today.  Based on the 'extranonce leak' we also know it is very likely Satoshi mined at least through mid 2010 and decreased his hashrate as other miners took up the slack.  The exchange rate was rapidly rising before Satoshi stopped mining but the later coins show the same lack of movement.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
Each wallet can have several receiving addresses. And I'm pretty sure you don't need a new private key for that.
I'm pretty sure I remember that this is even the default behavior from solo mining litecoins.

Each address ('pay to pubkeyhash') has its own private key.  Mining or not that is a basic of how Bitcoin works.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1031
Article looks like bullshit based off nothing but speculation to me. There's nothing that offers proof or backs up their claims at all. Nobody knows what happened to satoshi, his coins, or even if he is one or more people.

It is very simple to look that up.  Look at the first 20 000 blocks on blockchain.info.
There you will see Satoshi's addresses and their contents (indeed mostly 50 coins).

Block 0 (genesis block): address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

It has received some dust (and now has 65 coins in it) but never spend anything

Block 1 (first block) after genesis block: address 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX

It has received much less dust and now contains 50.025 coins, never spend anything

Block 2 : address: 1HLoD9E4SDFFPDiYfNYnkBLQ85Y51J3Zb1 and contains 50.00038429 BTC

and so on.

Block 10000: address 1JoiKZz2QRd47ARtcYgvgxC9jhnre9aphv, still contains the 50 BTC and no dust.

Block 15000: address 1KzP9ideELyDMyjg4svrheub7Ttg6W2cdk still contains the 50 BTC.

Block 20000: address 1Gtj5h1u8yZJe32neQZB5C7efP9XeMd9SW still contains the 50 BTC.

...

In fact, I wonder whether the idea is simply not that instead of a total amount of bitcoin of 21 million something, to have exactly 20 million.  If you subtract the early coins that don't seem to move, it seems to turn out to be about that.



Thank you. This is a more detailed rundown of what the chart shows.

What is really at stake is whether he kept all 20000 keys. Ultimately there's no proof for that - unless and until the coins in one of those addresses moves. It hasn't happened yet, so all we can say there's an absence of proof he kept the keys. You can't ever prove he discarded them, only that he didn't. But given that no one else was mining bitcoin, that bitcointalk didn't even exist, that the coins were worthless - albeit if he hoped they'd one day have some value - it's a valid theory.
hero member
Activity: 770
Merit: 629
Article looks like bullshit based off nothing but speculation to me. There's nothing that offers proof or backs up their claims at all. Nobody knows what happened to satoshi, his coins, or even if he is one or more people.

It is very simple to look that up.  Look at the first 20 000 blocks on blockchain.info.
There you will see Satoshi's addresses and their contents (indeed mostly 50 coins).

Block 0 (genesis block): address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

It has received some dust (and now has 65 coins in it) but never spend anything

Block 1 (first block) after genesis block: address 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX

It has received much less dust and now contains 50.025 coins, never spend anything

Block 2 : address: 1HLoD9E4SDFFPDiYfNYnkBLQ85Y51J3Zb1 and contains 50.00038429 BTC

and so on.

Block 10000: address 1JoiKZz2QRd47ARtcYgvgxC9jhnre9aphv, still contains the 50 BTC and no dust.

Block 15000: address 1KzP9ideELyDMyjg4svrheub7Ttg6W2cdk still contains the 50 BTC.

Block 20000: address 1Gtj5h1u8yZJe32neQZB5C7efP9XeMd9SW still contains the 50 BTC.

...

In fact, I wonder whether the idea is simply not that instead of a total amount of bitcoin of 21 million something, to have exactly 20 million.  If you subtract the early coins that don't seem to move, it seems to turn out to be about that.

sr. member
Activity: 348
Merit: 250
I don't get that mentality. Why would the price crash because satoshi is using his bitcoins?

He was the first miner and it's estimated he must have mined between half a million to one and a half million bitcoins. If he chose to dump them he could clear out all the buy orders on every exchange in an instant. Look at the damage the bear whale did by dumping a tiny fraction of the coins Satoshi mined.
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
I don't get that mentality. Why would the price crash because satoshi is using his bitcoins?
sr. member
Activity: 348
Merit: 250
If Satoshi was clever enough to invent Bitcoin, I also believe with all my heart that his intelligence stretched to, like, writing stuff down too.

Whoever or whatever Satoshi is must know the price would crash if those very early coins move. He was probably mining later on when others had started mining. In that case he would have plenty of bitcoins that were untraceable to spend without the need to touch the earliest coins he mined. Why would he crash the price moving his earliest mined coins if it devalues his coins he mined later?
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
No, because what people deliberately choose not to do can be as informative as what they choose to do. But I won't labour the point any further if you're not interested.


what?
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1031
If Satoshi was clever enough to invent Bitcoin, I also believe with all my heart that his intelligence stretched to, like, writing stuff down too.

Face. Palm. Not the point here.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3014
Welt Am Draht
If Satoshi was clever enough to invent Bitcoin, I also believe with all my heart that his intelligence stretched to, like, writing stuff down too.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1031
No, because what people deliberately choose not to do can be as informative as what they choose to do. But I won't labour the point any further if you're not interested.
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
So you just have a different public key with the same private key.

That's not how it works.
A public key is computed from the private key. There can not be two different public keys for one private key.
The other direction is possible (multiple private keys can have public keys that hash to the same bitcoin address) but so extremely unlikely that the probability can safely be ignored.

Onkel Paul

I don't really know all that much about ECDSA and co, but if that's true bitcoin-qt generates new private key/public key pairs on it's own every block when mining.

Yes, this is my understanding. I think we are talking cross purposes.

Edit: there's some ambiguity in the article that I'll fix, I suspect this has caused the problem. Point stands: he had to have the keys to create the addresses, but I'm not convinced he still has every single one.
It's speculation. A discussion starter. With some interesting evidence from the blockchain for his habits. Take it as you will.

As far as we know that would have happened automatically, which still would make that article sort of pointless.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1031
That he was aware of the potential - but still decided he couldn't be bothered?

...

Maybe buying back later...? That's certainly a route to lesser riches but much increased anonymity when cashing in.

Smart enough to know you only need so much money, and when it's wise to stop? Yes, absolutely. That seems entirely in character. Hence also stepping back when he did.
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