Say a group of rich investors got together and intending to buy huge amounts of bitcoin with the intention to one day crash the market. Say they told other investors of their plan deception and they bought into the idea. They done this for a while making the price of bitcoin soar. If they all collectively cashed in on their bitcoins and told people/ warned people and fooled them into doing the same via news articles, websites and other forms of mainstream exposure. Could they theoretically cause enough of a collapse to then buy the bitcoins back at a low price and wait for it to boom again makinf a huge profit or am I totally missing the point?
Why would these investors have this motivation? These people want to earn money, not to crash the market. Furthermore, the bitcoin volatility offers many profits options for them and, if they are rich enough, they can use their influence to create fear when they want to buy low and euphoria when they want to sell high.
I think he is implying that rich people could profit from artificially crashing the market.
It's quite possible that he simply doesn't have the private keys anymore.
This seems the most likely scenario if he is even still alive because I don't buy the whole cult like argument that satoshi is some benevolent being trying to create a utopia on earth that many bitcoin enthusiasts seem to believe in.