You must have definitely heard the popular name Satoshi Nakamoto if you are involved in the cryptocurrency and blockchain domain for some time or even began learning a few things about the crypto bourses. There is a great deal of narrative and speculation behind this crypto superstar. Satoshi Nakamoto is a sobriquet used to denote an individual or an organization, or a group of individuals who originally developed the Bitcoin protocol.
It is to be noted that Satoshi Nakamoto was very much involved in the development of Bitcoin (BTC) till December 2010. Furthermore, Satoshi Nakamoto was the originator of the Bitcoin white paper. At the time of writing this article, Bitcoin is the biggest virtual currency by market capitalization.
Satoshi Nakamoto & Bitcoin Development
Satoshi Nakamoto was the individual to develop the primary blockchain database which was a part of the implementation of Bitcoin (BTC).
Earlier, when using a P2P network, there existed a double-spending issue for the digital currencies. Satoshi Nakamoto analyzed and found an appropriate solution to that issue. He was notably, the first individual to find out the solution. Notably, Satoshi Nakamoto can be a solo individual or a group of folks who played the primary role in generating and developing the Bitcoin [BTC]. The true identity of pseudonym is yet not exposed. If truth be told, a lot of individuals claimed to be the real Satoshi. However, the true identity behind Satoshi is still a mystery.
It is to be noted that Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper and discussed the Bitcoin virtual currency, in October 2008. Nakamoto described the whole notion in a brief to the people who did not have any knowledge about it. It was Nakamoto, who released the first ever Bitcoin software. He can be called the superstar who brought the entire notion of digital currencies and virtual assets on the plot.
Bitcoin White Paper & Satoshi Nakamoto Net Worth
Interestingly, the code which was written for the first ever Bitcoin software started in 2007 itself. It took Satoshi Nakamoto quite some time to develop the perfect crypto software. Furthermore, the very essence of the bitcoins was analogous to that of the digital currencies. It is because of this reason, Nakamoto made sure that the fundamental design of the Bitcoin software should be able to sustain a comprehensive array of transaction categories. Any virtual asset exchange should have an upright backing of diverse sorts of transaction and that is what the end user would require in order for the network to be sustainable.
Correspondingly, it was quite essential for Satoshi Nakamoto to work in partnership with several other developers subsequent to forming a website with the domain name of bitcoin.org. This collaboration kept on taking place till the middle of 2010. After that, the network alert key and the source code repository were passed on to Gavin Andresen. Before passing it on, he made the required alterations that he thought ought to be made.
Is Satoshi Nakamoto Japanese?
Whenever Satoshi Nakamoto conversed about any technical matters, he did not open up very much about it. He seemingly wanted to keep it a secret to himself. Unquestionably, a person who shaped something like Bitcoin deserve to not divulge the technical things happening behind the development of the cryptocurrency.
Nevertheless, he did talk about something related to banking and fractional reserve banking. in 2012, there was a P2P Foundation profile which mentioned that he was a thirty-seven years old male who was a Japanese. Some people are of the opinion that he might not be Japanese as his English was too smooth for somebody expected to be a Japanese. Satoshi used to use impeccable English and the Bitcoin software was not documented or labelled in Japanese either. These people are of the opinion that Nakamoto or one out of the faction of people called Satoshi Nakamoto was of Commonwealth origin. This is because of sporadic British English spelling and terminology in both the forum postings as well as the source code comments. Rumors are always there but maximum people accept this speculation as true that he is a Japanese as was mentioned in the P2P foundation profile.
It is to be noted that for somebody seemingly living in Japan, the time stamps for each of the Bitcoin forum posts that were posted by Satoshi Nakamoto are not normal. A Swiss coder, Stefan Thomas graphed these timestamps. Subsequent to analysing, Stefan came to the deduction that as per the Japanese time, an uncommon sleep behavior was followed by Satoshi Nakamoto.
There were always fewer or no posts between 5 o’clock and 11 o’clock in the morning. This is the major reason why the conjectures and gossips are still thriving and not all people have confidence in the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto is essentially Japanese. It entirely makes logic for the reason that if Nakamoto had to divulge his identity to some degree, he would have just exposed his real name and came forward. He would only lie when Satoshi does not want to disclose his/her/their actual individuality.
Several computer science and cryptography pundits have been investigating the actual identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. Nonetheless, the identity has not been found up till now. There were numerous people who came up in front of the media claiming that they were the real Satoshi Nakamoto but nobody was able to furnish the required proofs.
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Even eleven years after Bitcoin’s first release, the identity of Bitcoin’s secretive originator is still unidentified. Markedly, there are a few probable contenders of who might be the real Satoshi Nakamoto. Here, we are trying to look at each one of them.
Adam Back
Adam Back began his career learning the juncture between computers and cryptography. It is to be noted that Adam developed the concept for “Hashcash”, in 1997. Interestingly, Hashcash was a premature application of POW or Proof of Work.
It is because of his development of Hashcash concept that many people link him with the formation of Bitcoin. It is to noted that Adam is now the CEO of Blockstream. Blockstream is a tech establishment engrossed in structuring blockchain based solutions. Notably, Blockstream is also one of the limited establishments that offer funding to Bitcoin core developers.
All over the years there have been more than a few untruthful apprehensions, like when a person actually called Satoshi Nakamoto was thought to be Bitcoin’s shadowy originator. The aforementioned incidences were deflated soon after due to an absence of corroboration. This leads all the crypto community back to the same question: Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Hal Finney
Interestingly, Hal Finney was a spoken cypherpunk. Hal was profoundly involved in cryptography even before he got to know about Bitcoin. Furthermore, he was on the mailing list that received Bitcoin’s whitepaper.
Oddly, he was also the receiver of the first Bitcoin transaction ever. This Bitcoin transaction was done by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. Leaving the mystery behind him, Hal passed away in August 2014 after fighting a degenerative disease for around five years.
Nick Szabo
Nick Szabo is an eminent cryptographer. It is to be noted that years before Bitcoin [BTC] became visible, Nick Szabo before now published a notion for an e-currency known as “Bit Gold”.
Even though Bit Gold never got any adoption due to its technical confines, it does certainly draw numerous matches to Bitcoin. As per several speculators, Nick Szabo might have enhanced his original notion and re-launched it as “Bitcoin”.
What is the Address of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin Wallet?
Interestingly, no one knows the precise number of Bitcoins that Satoshi Nakamoto holds. This is because all the Bitcoins and the free tokens that Satoshi earned after Bitcoin hardforks are not held in the same crypto wallet. All the Bitcoins are rather dispersed around thousands of different cryptocurrency wallets.
When Satoshi mined the Bitcoin genesis block, he used the following address:
1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
Notably, this is the only Bitcoin address which is established to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. Fascinatingly, this crypto wallet keeps receiving BTCs time and again. These transactions can be tips or tributes to Satoshi. However, the real story behind all these transactions is still unidentified.
How Does Satoshi Nakamoto Have So Many Bitcoins?
It is obvious that being the inventor of Bitcoin Satoshi need not buy any Bitcoin. It is to be noted that he was the first and foremost BTC miner. Furthermore, as per estimations, Satoshi was the only Bitcoin miner for about one year.
If one considers that Nakamoto was the only miner in the first fourteen days of Bitcoin’s presence, he also was the foremost miner for the rest of the year as the hashrate stayed rather unaffected in that period.
During that period, Bitcoin block reward was fifty BTC. This signifies that Satoshi Nakamoto collected nearly 980k Bitcoins in whole. Since Satoshi Nakamoto’s disappearance in 2011, the mysterious entity has not moved any of the gathered Bitcoins.
There are various speculations afloat in the crypto bourses regarding Satoshi Nakamoto. According to some, Satoshi might have passed away. There are other theories which suggest that Satoshi trusts in his creation so much that he does not want to spend them at all. Some theories suggest that he wants to dodge releasing a panic response among the crypto enthusiasts and adopters.
Is it Possible That Satoshi Nakamoto Becomes the Richest Person in the World?
Let us consider a hypothetical scenario where Bitcoin crosses the handle of $110k and the world’s existing billionaires stay comparatively unmoved, in this scenario Satoshi Nakamoto will become the richest person across the entire globe. If there occurs a situation where Bitcoin (BTC) becomes global currency or a viable alternative of digital gold, then its debatably not questionable that Satoshi Nakamoto may claim the topmost place on the Forbes billionaires list.
What is the Net Worth of Satoshi Nakamoto?
Bitcoin was worth a few cents in 2010. In 2011, BTC reached around $. This essentially means that he owned around $1 Million worth of Bitcoin at that time. Now, comes the interesting part. The net worth of Satoshi is not decided only by the amount of Bitcoins he own, but also by the number of extra coins he own due to Bitcoin Hard Forks. In order to calculate the present worth of Satoshi Nakamoto, we have to take into consideration, all the Bitcoin hard forks.
To date, there are more than 121 Bitcoin hard fork projects going on. For instance, if you have a bitcoin in your wallet and a hardfork takes place, then you get the new coins complementary in a specified ration. This signifies that the Bitcoin originator (Satoshi) has a copy of all the Bitcoin hard forks to date. So, how much is Satoshi worth now?
The net worth of Satoshi Nakamoto was around $20 Billion in 2017. And this figure does not even include the virtual money accumulated by him due to hard forks. At that time, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $20,000 on the crypto bourses. At the peak of crypto market, Satoshi became the forty fourth richest person in the world. Remarkably, if Bitcoin (BTC) touches the $110k mark, Satoshi will become the richest person beating Jeff Bezos to number two spot and will claim the first spot on the Forbes billionaire list.
It is to be noted that these all are approximations and the actual worth is driven by speculations. Therefore, the net worth of Satoshi Nakamoto is not clearly known which is understandable since he/she/they loves to be anonymous.
Satoshi Nakamoto: World’s First Trillionaire?
As per rough calculations, Satoshi Nakamoto holds nearly 980,000 BTC. In order for Satoshi to become a Trillionaire, the price of BTC needs to hit one million dollar a pop.
If such a scenario takes place, that would put the total BTC market cap at 21 Trillion USD. This is because, there can never be more than 21 Million Bitcoins, until and unless somebody figures out a way to corrupt Bitcoin blockchain with the help of quantum computing.
The supporters of Bitcoin who see BTC as the new global reserve currency, see that as a likelihood. However, seeing the present price, BTC might need to cover a large distance to reach that goal.
What do you think about the net worth of Satoshi Nakamoto? Do you think, it is right for a single person or entity to own that much wealth? Do Bitcoin has the potential to bring a new economic order in the world? Can Bitcoin become the global reserve currency? Let us know your opinions in the comments section below.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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