Quote from: kaggie on Today at 01:41:21 AM

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Isn't it then quite likely that Satoshi bought a ton of Bitcoin on Mt. Got (founded in 2010), anticipating that he would once prefer to not move those first mined coins? Or is it even possible that he somehow, don't ask me how, but somehow was involved with Mt. Gox?

I just can't get my head around the fact that those BTC are sitting idle and Satoshi feels no urge to move them. He must have benefitted from this, whoever he or she is or they are.

Two interesting questions.

Mt Gox was not the first exchange, nor the first user selling bitcoin.
I've always wondered whether New Liberty Standard was Satoshi.

I doubt that he would have been involved at all in establishing Mt Gox (other than ensuring people understood code or internet protocol interactions), because the threat of crossed wires and people claiming money fraud would be too great. SN understood well enough to keep his name hidden because of such a threat. Gox was the third exchange, so there would be no need for Satoshi by then. He would no doubt have steered clear of it to avoid excess trouble.

Satoshi would have as a goal to get the currency moving. He sort of failed at this for the first 8 months of bitcoin's existence. My guess is that the first few months he spent debugging code and had that as his primary focus, ensuring the base layers of his protocol and software were fully functioning. After those several months of testing with Hal and Martti, he then moved onto the next point.

Who knows why he left the mined coins from 2009/2010 untouched? It can only be speculation, but remember his motivation -- to create a peer to peer currency. He had to make it look like the new currency was being used, but also not look like an individual couldn't join. He couldn't look like he would hold the majority forever or no one would want to join. He could even have sent those coin off to the void to create the mystery, and drum interest. Perhaps he hid coin behind different riddles and tests to test the resilience of the network. Him mining made it look like there were more users than there were, before the extra nonce tagging him was discovered.

I can imagine him buying bitcoin, as this would help the market move and provide demand. He couldn't do this on his own. He could be a middle man, but to get the currency to succeed, he had to get others to use it, perhaps as a buyer or seller. He couldn't use the bitcoin from his main address, as that would flag him too much. His domain was known and linked to him through his transaction and Hal's posts.

He would have seen the rise of value from less than a tenth of cent to a dollar by the time he disappeared. If he was older, then perhaps he mined to the void as his gift to the world. If he was younger, perhaps he is still saving it for a rainy day. There are numerous explanations as to why he may not have touched those coin: it would identify himself (opening all sorts of trouble), he may be dead (Hal, David), he may not need to (being rich off of other bought coin), or he may have lost the methods to retrieve it.

Whatever his reasoning and methods, it worked. Growing in large part due to the community that surrounded him as well.

If he were alive, it would be interesting to know what his attitudes were today, because people can change.

Quote from: hazenyc on July 27, 2021, 11:26:06 PM

Yes, makes a lot of sense what you and Frankie are saying, just learning over here. Wink

We all learn. There are plenty of mysteries in blockchain that are yet to be discovered, no doubt, especially if you consider that even the hashes of the word 'hello' and the names of linux system files have revealed coin.

It is the greatest unsolved mystery of our day.

And truth be told, we may never have the answer to it.

An overwritten drive would leave no forensic evidence if his goal were to remain hidden.

Thanks Kaggie for that post! I really appreciate you taking the time to answer that comprehensively!

Everything you said is valid. This story is just crazy. One thing I really don't believe is that he lost the methods to retrieve the coins. That's just unconceivable for me. That's like a Formula 1 racer not noticing he forgot the steering wheel. That's just 99.9999% unlikely. Someone who is able to put the code for Bitcoin together doesn't lose the keys to the biggest wallet out there.

All the other scenarios could be true. I didn't know there have been exchanges before Mt. Gox, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he had a finger in the pie with any of the marketplaces before Mt. Gox. Yes he wouldn't have set up a company or anything like that, but it just is hard to believe that he did nothing but publish the code and disappear. If he really did that, he has my deepest respect, deeper than the respect he already has from me. Imagine how much control you have to have over yourself not to get sloppy and make mistakes or fall victim to your own greed when your BTC hit $60 billion...

Absolutely insane story, definitely one that we will only have once in a lifetime and definitely one that we are soon going to see in cinemas around the world.