Satoshi Nakamoto: What is the fortune of the inventor of bitcoin?

Due to the massive growth of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto is now one of the 100 richest people on the planet. However, it seems that Satoshi Nakamoto has never sold any of his bitcoins, and it is not even known if he is still alive.

We will briefly examine Satoshi’s involvement in the Bitcoin project, explain how he amassed his treasure trove of BTC, and compare his wealth to that of other billionaires and famous crypto whales.

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the creator of bitcoin. So little is known about Satoshi’s true identity that we don’t even know if the name refers to a person or a group of people. In fact, we don’t even know if Satoshi is still alive – if he is, he has shown great restraint in not cashing in even a small portion of his multi-billion dollar bitcoin stash.

Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper in 2008, and the Bitcoin network itself was launched on January 3, 2009. Satoshi mined the first block of the Bitcoin blockchain, also known as the genesis block. He continued to mine for some time after Bitcoin’s launch, earning large amounts of BTC rewards.

For some time after Bitcoin’s release, Satoshi actively discussed his invention with interested participants on online platforms, including the BitcoinTalk forum. Satoshi’s last public communication was in December 2010. In April 2011, Satoshi clarified that he was no longer working on Bitcoin through email correspondence with Bitcoin developers.

Even though Satoshi has not been involved in the Bitcoin project for over a decade, Bitcoin users are reminded of his legacy on a daily basis. Indeed, each BTC coin can be divided into 100 million units, called satoshis. Bitcoin users often use the abbreviation “sats” to refer to the satoshis.

Many researchers and journalists have analyzed Satoshi Nakamoto’s writings in an attempt to determine his true identity. However, no conclusive evidence has been found to link Satoshi Nakamoto to a real identity. Of course, many people have been named as potential candidates for Satoshi Nakamoto, most commonly Adam Back, Nick Szabo and Hal Finney.

Some people, notably Craig Wright, have actively claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. However, their claims have been largely rejected by the community, as no self-proclaimed Satoshi has been able to conclusively prove that he is the inventor of Bitcoin.

Satoshi Nakamoto fortune in 2023? Examining the Bitcoin founder’s crypto-currency wallets

Researchers have provided fairly reliable estimates of the amount of BTC Satoshi owns, which allows us to estimate his net worth. As of January 2023, Satoshi Nakamoto’s net worth is approximately $18.5 billion. When bitcoin was at its peak price in November 2021, Satoshi Nakamoto’s net worth was about $75.6 billion.

How many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamoto own?

As mentioned earlier, Satoshi amassed a large number of BTC through mining in the early days of Bitcoin. Although we cannot know exactly how much BTC Satoshi was able to mine, the commonly accepted estimate is that he mined about 1.1 million BTC.

This is the estimate provided by developer and crypto-currency expert Sergio Demian Lerner, who discovered Satoshi’s crypto-currency system. “Patoshi in the early blocks of Bitcoin. Lerner was able to estimate the number of blocks that were mined by Satoshi, so it is also possible to estimate the number of bitcoins that Satoshi has – about 1.1 million coins. This represents about 5.2 percent of the outstanding supply of bitcoins.

Satoshi Nakamoto was mining bitcoins before the first bitcoin halving, when the reward per block was 50 BTC. This, combined with the fact that there were not many other active miners on the network, allowed him to earn a truly massive amount of BTC.

What is Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin address?

Each of Satoshi’s block rewards was sent to a different address. As a result, there are more than 20,000 different addresses holding Satoshi’s bitcoins. The most famous is of course the address that received Bitcoin’s genesis block award. It is interesting to note that the 50 BTC that were awarded for the genesis block are not spendable.

From time to time, bitcoin users send BTC to this “genesis address” in honor of Satoshi. A total of about 18.57 BTC has been sent to this address so far, in addition to the 50 BTC genesis block reward.

Another notable address belonging to Satoshi is the one he used to make the very first Bitcoin transaction between two users. On January 12, 2009, Satoshi sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney, a software developer who was an early adopter of Bitcoin.

Crypto-currency market watchers monitor the bitcoin blockchain to see if transactions are being sent from wallets that were active during “Satoshi era“. However, there has not been a single BTC transaction since Satoshi left the Bitcoin project that can be conclusively attributed to him.

How does Satoshi’s wealth compare to that of other Bitcoin billionaires and whales?

If we assume Satoshi Nakamoto’s fortune is $18.5 billion, he would be the 86th richest person in the world according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire rankings. He would also likely be the richest person in the crypto world, ahead of Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ“Zhao. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates CZ’s wealth at $12.3 billion. Other

Satoshi is also probably the largest holder of bitcoins in the world. Here’s how many bitcoins are held by some of the most notable Bitcoin “whales”:

• Satoshi Nakamoto: 1.1 million BTC
• Grayscale Bitcoin Trust: 631,000 BTC
• Binance: 521,000 BTC
• Coinbase: 483,000 BTC
• Bitfinex: 353,000 BTC
• MicroStrategy: 132,500 BTC

*Figures are rounded for readability. Data as of January 4, 2023.

The bottom line: despite his huge fortune, Satoshi is not touching his BTC.

Satoshi’s stash of 1.1 million BTC makes him one of the 100 richest people on the planet, but he seems content to sit on his digital coin pile. The fact that Satoshi hasn’t moved any BTC coins in over a decade is one of the main reasons many people think he’s dead.

Others claim that the reason Satoshi doesn’t sell or spend his bitcoins is simply because he doesn’t care about his personal wealth and wants to remain anonymous. Whatever the real reason, we can always be grateful to Satoshi for his brilliant invention!

If you are interested in the net worth of other famous crypto-currency founders, check out our articles analyzing the wealth of TRON founder Justin Sun and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.