No, Satoshi Nakamoto Didn't Just Move His Bitcoin - Decrypt

5/27/2020 No, Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t just move his Bitcoin - Decrypt
News Coins
No, Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t just move

his Bitcoin
50 Bitcoin from a block reward mined in February 2009 are on the
move. But here’s why they don’t belong to Satoshi.
By Colin Harper 4 min read May 21, 2020
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
In brief
An early Bitcoin miner has moved 50 Bitcoin that were mined in a

Feburary 9, 2009 block reward.
Some have speculated these Bitcoin might belong to Bitcoin’s
creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Analysis of Bitcoin blockchain data, however, puts this rumor to
rest.
T it?
he return of Satoshi Nakamoto would be fitting for 2020, wouldn’t
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https://decrypt.co/29575/satoshi-nakamoto-didnt-just-move-bitcoin 1/7
In case you missed it, someone who mined Bitcoin in 2009, just a month
after its creation, decided to move coins today that had not been touched
in 11 years.
These 50 bitcoin were mined on February 9, 2009, shortly after Satoshi

Nakamoto bootstrapped the Bitcoin network. So, of course, social media
is lit up with the scuttlebutt that these coins must belong to Bitcoin’s
pseudonymous creator.
Whale Alert
@whale_alert
40 #BTC (391,055 USD) transferred from possible

#Satoshi owned wallet (dormant since 2009) to unknown wallet
The coins in this transaction were mined in the first month of

Bitcoin's existence.
Tx: whale-alert.io/transaction/bi…
9,752 9:54 PM - May 20, 2020
4,388 people are talking about this
It’s a fun rumor—made even more savory for the fact that Satoshi may
be sitting on anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million Bitcoin that has never
been moved. But while fun, it probably isn’t true. What’s more likely is
that someone else who mined Bitcoin in the early days just finally got
around to moving this batch in particular.
How do we know? Bitcoin blockchain data and the "Patoshi Pattern."
Dawn of the digital gold rush
The 50 Bitcoin in question was mined just a month after Bitcoin was
launched,
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leading some to believe they belong to Satoshi because
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it was
News
too early for other mining activity.
This overlooks the fact that Satoshi broadcasted the launch of Bitcoin on
the same cryptographic mailing list that he used to disseminate the
whitepaper. Blockchain data strongly suggests (but of course, doesn’t
prove) that a handful of miners were on the network during Bitcoin’s
early days alongside Satoshi.
The so-called Patoshi Pattern (developed by RSK software designer

Sergio Demain Lerner) gives us a rough picture of Bitcoin’s mining
landscape in the early months. Basically, this pattern looks at the
“nonces” (i.e., the cryptographic hash that miners guess to connect a new
Bitcoin block with an old one) left by what is believed to be a single
entity (some believe Satoshi).
Patoshi blocks have a different nonce pattern (due to an old flaw in

Bitcoin’s code) than other miners’ blocks, the analysis suggests. And as
Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter points out on Twitter, the
Bitcoin that were just spent came from a different block than the ones
that belong to the Patoshi Pattern.
Whale Alert @whale_alert · May 20, 2020

40 #BTC (391,055 USD) transferred from possible
#Satoshi owned wallet (dormant since 2009) to unknown wallet
Share The coinsSee

in Price
this transaction were mined in the first month of News
Bitcoin's existence.
Tx: whale-alert.io/transaction/bi…
nic carter
@nic__carter
A visual explanation of why this block is NOT believed to be

Satoshi: twitter.com/nic__carter/st…
nic carter @nic__carter

Replying to @nic__carter
Here's a visualization of the Patoshi pattern with the block that was
just spent. The blocks believed to be Satoshi have a specific pattern in
the nonce, which this block does not have
316 10:34 PM - May 20, 2020
68 people are talking about this
“Triangulating Satoshi's coins is a harder task than many people expect,

and lots of people think there is a single wallet with 1m BTC in it,”
Carter told Decrypt. “To the contrary, there's significant amounts of
uncertainty as to the size of the large early miner which is assumed to be
Satoshi.”
“However, most experts find Lerner’s analysis persuasive, and it clearly

distinguishes 'patoshi' coins from other early mined coins. Based on that
analysis, the block in question was not mined by the large single entity
presumed to be Satoshi.”
$500,000 Bitcoin stash from Satoshi era just moved

A long term Bitcoin hodler—or someone who just found an old wallet—has
moved a large amount of Bitcoin, mined during the network's earliest days.…
News Technology
3 min read
Tim Copeland May 20, 2020
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Carter added that there were “likely dozens” of other miners on the
network at this time, though it’s impossible to know for sure, of course.
Blockstream engineer Grubles told Decrypt that he personally knows
someone who was mining Bitcoin in 2009, adding anecdotal evidence to
the soft data that Satoshi was not the only one on the network in its
infancy.
Grubles also alluded to a reddit post by Blockstream co-founder Gregory

Maxwell that explains this miner very well could have been spending
Bitcoin from their original Bitcoin Core wallet for sometime; they just
didn’t spend this old transaction until now.
All told, this has happened before (most recently, in August 2017), and
as Grubles put it simply, “just because the Bitcoin is old, doesn’t
automatically mean it’s Satoshi.”
After all, the Patoshi Pattern has an attributable 1 million Bitcoin

attached to it. If Satoshi really wanted to spend his fortune, he’d be
moving a lot more than 50 Bitcoin.
https://decrypt.co/29575/sat
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5/27/2020 No, Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t just move his Bitcoin - Decrypt

No, Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t just move

By Colin Harper 4 min read May 21, 2020

An early Bitcoin miner has moved 50 Bitcoin that were mined in a

Share See Price News

These 50 bitcoin were mined on February 9, 2009, shortly after Satoshi

40 #BTC (391,055 USD) transferred from possible

The coins in this transaction were mined in the first month of

4,388 people are talking about this

How do we know? Bitcoin blockchain data and the "Patoshi Pattern."

Dawn of the digital gold rush

too early for other mining activity.

The so-called Patoshi Pattern (developed by RSK software designer

Patoshi blocks have a different nonce pattern (due to an old flaw in

Whale Alert @whale_alert · May 20, 2020

Share The coinsSee

A visual explanation of why this block is NOT believed to be

nic carter @nic__carter

316 10:34 PM - May 20, 2020

68 people are talking about this

“Triangulating Satoshi's coins is a harder task than many people expect,

“However, most experts find Lerner’s analysis persuasive, and it clearly

$500,000 Bitcoin stash from Satoshi era just moved

Share See Price News

Grubles also alluded to a reddit post by Blockstream co-founder Gregory

After all, the Patoshi Pattern has an attributable 1 million Bitcoin

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