How can Bitcoin ever become a successful global currency when a single entity is in possession of 5-10% of what will ever be in circulation?! If he decides to sell at any point, huge inflation is guaranteed.
I know it's likely that he'll never sell the coins for the sake of anonymity and personal safety, or for the sake of the system. Possible he has even destroyed the private keys. But it doesn't seem certain enough that we can make that assumption.
I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been more widely discussed - so am I missing something?
I have always viewed Satoshi holding such a large batch of funds, so that one day, if Bitcoin encounters a catastrophic event, those coins could be used to kickstart the economy again. And I have a gut feeling that this is what Satoshi was thinking when he retained a chunk of the economy for safekeeping. .... "If its needed one day".
-B-
I am not sure how his bitcoin could "kickstart" the bitcoin economy. If something were to hypothetically happen that would cause bitcoin to have little/no value then additional coins in circulation would only make things worse.
I think it would be very possible for satashi to sell his bitcoin in a controlled fashion so that him selling would result in massive price declines. If he were to announce that he will sell no more then 1,800 BTC per day (after the block subsidies half again) then the net effect would be that the same number of coins would be coming onto the market as before the subsidies halved