The creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is now the 11th richest person in the world, as his BTC portfolio — based on wallets linked to the long-inactive crypto icon — surpassed $130 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence. This comes at a time when the leading cryptocurrency has hit a series of new all-time highs, with a 14% increase in the last month.
This puts Satoshi Nakamoto's net worth above that of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has a net worth of $117 billion, and Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell, whose net worth is $126.5 billion, according to Forbes. The monthly movement of Bitcoin has allowed Satoshi to surpass both technology founders.
The net worth of the creator of Bitcoin is approaching the fortune of iconic Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett — a well-known critic of Bitcoin. With a net worth of $141 billion, Bitcoin would need to rise just over 8% from its current price of $118,912 to $128,650 for Satoshi to surpass Buffett.
Buffett once compared Bitcoin to "rat poison" and said in 2022 that he wouldn't buy all the bitcoins in the world for $25 — BTC has risen 204% since then. Satoshi is now $12 billion away from surpassing his net worth.
Forbes monitors the net worth of these billionaires by observing the individuals' public holdings and estimating the value of private holdings according to "a sector or region-specific market index."
A popular way to identify how much BTC Satoshi possesses is through the Patoshi Pattern, which describes a mining pattern found in the early blocks of Bitcoin. A single miner mined the first 22,000 blocks using characteristic behavior, and many believe that this miner was actually Satoshi.
Therefore, it is widely believed that Satoshi mined 1.1 million BTC, a surprisingly similar figure to Arkham Intelligence's estimate of 1.096 million bitcoins.
Can Satoshi Nakamoto sell?
The exact identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is unknown, despite many attempts over the years to unmask the creator of the cryptocurrency.
An HBO documentary last fall claimed that Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd was the elusive inventor of cryptocurrencies, but this theory was dismissed by viewers and Todd himself. Other Bitcoin pioneers, like Adam Back and the late Hal Finney, have been labeled as Satoshi, although both have denied the claims.
Others believe that Tesla CEO Elon Musk could have created Bitcoin, that a group, rather than an individual, is behind the technology, or that it was secretly created by the U.S. government. In the end, no definitive answer has been reached.
"I think Satoshi was a single person in terms of the number of entities controlling his accounts, like the Bitcoin Talk forum," said Econoalchemist, a pseudonymous Bitcoin miner, to Decrypt. "But I believe Satoshi had good contacts among cryptographers, researchers, and cypherpunks, and he leveraged those relationships to build Bitcoin."
The wallets believed to belong to Satoshi have never moved Bitcoin, according to Arkham, leading many to believe they may not even be alive anymore. After all, why not withdraw at least a little, considering the immense gains of Bitcoin?
But if the inventor is not dead, there is nothing to stop him from selling.
"I think Satoshi may still be alive, but I don't think he would ever sell his coins," explained Econoalchemist. "He built an alternative monetary system, and I don't believe he did it for the profits of the failed system that Bitcoin was designed to replace."
On Tuesday, a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal was presented that seeks to alter the blockchain software to protect against code breaking by quantum computers. Although the proposal only affects 25% of all Bitcoin — including the BTC linked to Satoshi — its proponents argue that the unprecedented threat of quantum computing demands unprecedented measures.
The proposal arises at a time when experts are increasingly concerned about the possibility of quantum computing being used to break the private keys of highly lucrative wallets in the next decade.
If that happened, theoretically, not only could Satoshi's BTC but also 25% of the total supply, as estimated by Deloitte, be flooded into the market, resulting in a "liquidation event," experts warned.