The first cryptocurrency has existed for more than 16 years, and its dollar price recently touched six figures—once fanciful. Yet the identity of bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, remains a mystery.
Satoshi’s last public message dates to December 2010; his known wallets fell inactive then, too. The chances of unmasking him may seem close to zero, but new theories continue to surface.
Does the crypto community even need to know? With the creator of the eponymous parsers for bitcoin’s blockchain, BTCparser, we explore why an anonymous developer so fascinates conspiracists—and what unmasking the secret could set in motion.
A quick refresher
On January 3rd 2009 Satoshi launched bitcoin’s mainnet and mined the genesis block, receiving 50 BTC. It is thought that, in the blockchain’s infancy, the creator kept participating as a miner.
Although the exact number of coins mined by the “father of the first cryptocurrency” is unknown, researchers estimate that wallets linked to him hold about 1.1m BTC. The conclusion rests on granular analysis of early on-chain activity that revealed the so‑called “Patoshi pattern”—some 22,000 of the first blocks were mined under this model.
At current prices, Satoshi’s stash is worth roughly $94.5bn. Recently, issuers of American BTC ETFs surpassed the creator of digital gold by the bitcoins they have accumulated, but corporate reserves still pale beside the coins in the hands of one person—or, perhaps, a group.
With a new bull cycle, general interest in digital assets has risen—and with it curiosity about the creator of the first cryptocurrency.
2024 began with sending 26.9 BTC to one of Satoshi’s wallets; Binance was named as the source of most of the funds.
The riddle of that odd transaction remains unsolved. In March, however, a British court drew a line under the case of the “pseudo‑Satoshi” Craig Wright, ruling that he is not bitcoin’s creator. Soon after, another likely impostor emerged—Steven Mulla.
The year’s marquee theme release was Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery from HBO, by Cullen Hoback. It named Peter Todd as bitcoin’s lead developer; he later repeatedly denied the claims and complained about threats to his safety.
In February 2025 a suggestion emerged that the pseudonym Satoshi might hide Jack Dorsey, co‑founder of Twitter (now X) and Square (Block).
“There have been many attempts to reveal Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity; we already have several quite plausible versions. At the same time, the HBO version didn’t appeal to me personally—lots of noise and, in the end, a damp squib. I am sure new versions will appear in the foreseeable future. And why such a wide resonance? We like riddles; we are interested in Satoshi’s genius; we are curious—what kind of HODLer he is,” BTCparser sums up.
The researcher has his own theory: Satoshi did not disappear but turned into a “mega‑whale”. To avoid unwanted attention, bitcoin’s creator abandoned old wallets and anonymously moves funds mined after 2010.
Since 2019 BTCparser has tracked addresses selected by special criteria and found that 24,000 BTC have been moved from “awakened” wallets attributed to the putative Satoshi.
“I believe that Satoshi is alive; he mined his bitcoins. Then he left the public arena, changed equipment, and continued mining assets on it. Perhaps the whale from 2012 that wakes batches of bitcoins (20 addresses of 50 BTC) is our Satoshi or someone from his group. And he has quite a lot of those coins from 2012 and later. Therefore, waking the first wallets and causing panic makes no sense for him,” BTCparser said.
Read more about the “mega‑whale” theory in our article or on the forum BTCparser.
The central mystery of modern cryptography
Satoshi’s identity has become a cult of sorts for the crypto community, and his anonymity fits the project’s intent perfectly—so BTCparser explains the broad interest in bitcoin’s creator. More generally, human curiosity and a penchant for myth‑making do the rest.
According to BTCparser, the interested public falls into camps with different worries. Traders and investors want to know how reliable Satoshi is as a HODLer:
“Meaning, what is the probability that his million bitcoins will not be used at some point to crash the price?”
As BTCparser explained, many fear that Satoshi might suddenly decide to “slam the whole stash into the market”. But the industry now has many players—and many who like bitcoin’s original ideas. Everything, therefore, depends on the market’s ability to “swallow this mega‑order”.
“This risk is no longer a risk at all, especially for those who are on spot and trade with pending orders. Such a powerful dump will simply give some traders a chance to buy cheaply. And it is by no means certain that the price will drop very seriously,” the expert clarified.
There are also frequent worries about a potential hack of “abandoned” bitcoin wallets. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino suggested that, in future, quantum computers’ power could be enough to crack legacy‑format addresses.
He said that by then users would have moved to upgraded wallets with quantum protection, but old inactive addresses would be vulnerable. Ardoino also mentioned a hypothetical ability to “process and freeze” Satoshi’s coins for safety.
On the other side are developers and crypto‑enthusiasts, like BTCparser himself. They want to know who this smart person is, what he is doing now, and whether he has other projects.
“Perhaps for many it would be better if Satoshi were dead and his coins irretrievably lost. But personally I would not want such an outcome. On the contrary, I want such a brilliant person to be alive, wealthy, and directing his resources to create something useful or new,” the researcher added.
Overblown expectations
Satoshi Nakamoto is the crypto community’s ultimate enigma. But a question arises: is it worth opening this Pandora’s box (in fact it was a pithos—a large vessel)?
First, the Peter Todd episode showed that even conjecture about billions on a crypto wallet can endanger a person’s safety. Second, as BTCparser allowed, people’s expectations may not be met:
“What if Satoshi turns out to be a criminal serving a long sentence? And such a version already exists — Paul Le Roux. What if it is someone worse than Jeffrey Epstein, and all of bitcoin was created for much baser and nastier purposes? It immediately becomes unpleasant. But, on the other hand, we do not think about how many secrets are tied to a random banknote in our wallet.”
In today’s reality it is probably time to separate the technology of the first cryptocurrency from its author, the blockchain researcher argues. The bitcoin network operates in a decentralised manner, as Satoshi intended, so his identity is not that important.
“I like the idea that I have an intangible means of payment that cannot be taken away by simply freezing my account because of an error, a malfunction, or because I suddenly became unwelcome to someone. And in that case, it no longer matters who Satoshi is,” BTCparser emphasised.
The speaker sees far greater risk to the crypto industry in the actions of various regulators and AML bots whose task is to “taint” bitcoins so people are afraid to buy real coins even on reputable exchanges. As a result, yesterday’s maximalists choose ETFs—derivatives of the real asset—that not only drift away from the technology but bury its very idea alive, leaving only speculation.
“Despite everything, thank you, Satoshi, for bitcoin, whoever you are! It is a brilliant and beautiful solution that has given many of us not only new sources of income but also knowledge, hobbies, acquaintances,” BTCparser concluded.