Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, has always been an enigmatic figure in the cryptocurrency world. Although his identity remains unverified, one of the biggest questions is the amount of Bitcoin Satoshi may own. Let’s explore the estimates of the Bitcoin that Satoshi might be holding.
1. What is Satoshi’s Bitcoin wallet?
Satoshi Nakamoto does not just own one Bitcoin wallet, but possibly thousands of different wallets. The reason for this is that during the process of mining Bitcoin, he used a new address for each block reward he received. Two of the most notable wallets we know of that belong to Satoshi are the Genesis Wallet (the wallet that mined the first block) and the wallet used to send the first 10 BTC to Hal Finney, who received Bitcoin from Satoshi.
2. Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet addresses
Satoshi Nakamoto used many different wallet addresses, and it is estimated that he may own over 20,000 addresses. Each time a Bitcoin block was mined, he received the reward into a new address. In the early days, when Satoshi was the most famous Bitcoin miner, he amassed an enormous amount of block rewards.
Here are some examples of Bitcoin addresses that many believe belong to Satoshi. Notably, most of these wallets contain 50 BTC, as Satoshi rarely spent his Bitcoin (apart from the transaction where he sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney).
Some special addresses, such as the Genesis Wallet, even hold mining rewards larger than 50 BTC, as Bitcoin users sometimes sent additional BTC to these wallets as a tribute to Satoshi.
2.1. “Hal Finney” address
One of the unique addresses owned by Satoshi Nakamoto is the one used to send 10 BTC to Hal Finney – the first Bitcoin transaction between two users. Prior to this transaction, all Bitcoin transactions were simply block rewards received by miners (primarily Satoshi) from the Bitcoin protocol.
Currently, this address has a balance of 18.44 BTC, equivalent to about 1.34 million USD (at the current price). This address has accumulated more BTC over time through subsequent transactions, most likely from admirers of Satoshi and the groundbreaking impact he brought with Bitcoin.
The last transaction from this Bitcoin address took place on January 12, 2009, just three days after Bitcoin was officially launched. Hal Finney, an American software engineer and cryptographic activist, was one of the first – if not the very first – to use Bitcoin. A famous tweet by Hal Finney on January 11, 2009, just two days after Satoshi released the Bitcoin software, marked a significant moment in Bitcoin’s history.
2.2. Genesis Bitcoin address
The most famous address of Satoshi is the Genesis Bitcoin address – the address that mined the first block in the Bitcoin blockchain. The wallet of this address currently holds 100.15 BTC, worth approximately 6.3 million USD at today’s Bitcoin price. Similar to the address we just mentioned, the Genesis address also occasionally receives additional BTC, as a tribute to Satoshi and his contributions to the community.
On January 5, 2024, this address received a notable BTC deposit of 26.9 BTC from an anonymous sender.
An interesting fact about the Genesis address is that the 50 BTC reward from mining the first block cannot be spent. According to Charles Hoskinson’s explanation, this is because Satoshi did not add the coinbase transaction of the Genesis block to the global transaction database used by Bitcoin nodes. Hoskinson is uncertain whether this was an intentional move by Satoshi or just an oversight.
However, the remaining BTC in Satoshi Nakamoto’s other addresses can still be spent as usual. To date, Satoshi has never spent any of his Bitcoin, which has led to much speculation that he may have passed away.
3. How many Bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamoto own?
Because Satoshi Nakamoto has kept his identity secret, it is impossible to definitively confirm that the Bitcoin addresses attributed to him truly belong to him. However, through blockchain analysis by experts, several hypotheses have been proposed to estimate the number of Bitcoins he may own.
One of the most prominent estimates comes from researcher Sergio Damian Lerner, who analyzed and suggested that Satoshi mined around 1.1 million BTC. To arrive at this figure, Lerner discovered a unique pattern in the way Bitcoin blocks were mined during the early days of Bitcoin, known as the “Patoshi” model. This model helps distinguish blocks mined by Satoshi from those mined by others with a high degree of reliability.
However, estimates regarding the number of Bitcoins Satoshi owns are not entirely consistent. For example, according to BitMEX Research in 2018, a more reasonable estimate was between 600,000 and 700,000 BTC, rather than Lerner’s figure of 1.1 million BTC. Even so, if we accept the more conservative estimate of 600,000 BTC, Satoshi would still hold approximately $43.6 billion in Bitcoin.
Many experts and traders in the cryptocurrency community closely monitor addresses that may belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. If, one day, he decides to reactivate one or more of his wallets, it could trigger a major shock in the Bitcoin market.
While there have been a few instances of Bitcoin from Satoshi’s era being moved, these transactions are not related to the addresses believed to belong to Satoshi.
Despite the ongoing debates about the exact number of Bitcoins Satoshi Nakamoto owns, there is no denying his significant influence on the development of Bitcoin. Regardless of how many Bitcoins remain untouched, this interest will continue to fuel speculation and expectations within the cryptocurrency community.
