It certainly cannot be said that the Cryptoverse is a dull place. Tales of glory and woe abound. The mysteries are however the most intriguing, if all these mysteries were made into novels, they would fill a whole bookshelf just from the past decade. Who was the mastermind behind BitConnect? Where’s Dr. Ruja? Did Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX really die in India? More recently, where in the world are those AfriCrypt bois? But the largest section of the bookshelf would be occupied by the greatest mystery, one which lies at the genesis block of the Cryptoverse, and of course that mystery is… who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
There have been endless attempts to solve this mystery, this post will not be one of them. If you want to dive down the rabbit hole of this mystery, I suggest watching some of the videos linked in the references below. (The best is by Barely Sociable on YouTube) This post will concern itself with a subset of the Satoshi mystery namely Satoshi’s Bitcoin wallet(s), and the nearly one million BTC residing there within.
Given the current price of Bitcoin at $49k USD that would make Satoshi’s BTC hodling at nearly $50 billion USD, this would catapult Satoshi into the top lists of the richest people on Earth. So why have the wallets been inactive since the beginning. Surely anyone would want the glory, and riches that would come from being known as the creator of Bitcoin. Many theories have been put forth to explain the situation, including that Satoshi died before Bitcoin became worth anything.
Many say that Satoshi maybe more than one person, if that was true then I believe it would be exceedingly difficult for several people to hold back on accessing such a fortune. So logically I believe that Satoshi is/was a singular individual. He or She very well could have departed the mortal plane, but for the sake of my speculation let’s assume that Satoshi is still living, and then why are all those bitcoins idle?
From what I’ve previously read there are many who believe that Satoshi has a streak of altruism and is holding back their BTC in the fear it’ll crash the price if it is moved. Many place Satoshi upon a pedestal as if some divine being who has gifted humanity Bitcoin from the goodness of their heart. Satoshi created Bitcoin as a digital currency, so if you were going to create money then why never use it?
For this speculation I will apply Occam’s razor which states that the simplest explanation is usually the truth, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck! Bitcoin comes from a place of paranoia and mistrust, and I believe this maybe the key to understanding the lost Bitcoins of Nakamoto. The most indicative piece of evidence of this theory is that when Gavin Andresen communicated to Satoshi that he was going to the CIA to give a talk about bitcoin, which just so happened to be one of the last times that the world heard from the creator. Context is key, there was no certainty that the project would become successful. The earliest attention that was brought to bitcoin came from the Wikileaks drama in the early 2010s which was some serious high stakes shit. At this time Bitcoin was in its infancy being associated with clear antigovernmental activities could bring a lot of unwanted scrutiny.
Given the secretive paranoia surrounding the creation of Bitcoin I believe that whomever it was destroyed all evidence of their involvement including the cryptographic keys that could unlock those million BTC. Given that Satoshi is still alive I believe that they would be too embarrassed to publicly admit that they destroyed the keys or lost them in a "boating accident." Would you want to be known as the person who lost one of the greatest fortunes in the history of the world. So, in my humble speculation I believe it is a mix of regret, shame, and embarrassment that will keep the mystery of Satoshi just that, a mystery.
If, however I am wrong, and Satoshi is healthy and in full possession of the keys to the genesis BTC, if even a fraction of a Bitcoin is moved from one of these wallets it would send shockwaves through the Cryptoverse shaking it to the foundations. It would certainly be interesting, recently some “ancient” Bitcoin wallets have come back to life so it is not out of the realm of possibility that the Nakamoto wallet(s) could be reanimated.
Bitcoin and more importantly the blockchain paradigm it is built off has been revolutionary, the Cryptoverse has matured beyond the ideas of one person into a burgeoning ecosystem of wonderful things. The world will be forever in debt to the creator, and maybe it’s best some things remain a mystery.
I know this type of speculation is sacrilegious to many Bitcoin maxis but I’m just throwing it out there. What do you think? What would happen if some of the genesis coins moved? What would you do with a million BTC? Please comment below.
TIME is the most valuable coin and thank you for spending yours reading my post. I hope you have a wonderful day.
>>> Anarchiss <<<
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