Throw everything you know about finance, wealth, and investing away because the world has gone bonkers. Up is down. Down is up. Imaginary digital assets are worth a fortune. It seems like every asset class is in full mania mode.
And on that note, earlier this week, Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time. At that price, the currency's secretive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, is now one of the 20 richest people in the world.
(Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about Satoshi Nakamoto or the history of Bitcoin here. If you're interested in a detailed backstory, please read the following article:
Here's all you need to know:
It's generally agreed that a man named Satoshi Nakamoto registered the domain Bitcoin.org in August 2007. Two months later, he published a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" and submitted it to a cryptography mailing list.
Nakamoto implemented the Bitcoin software on January 3, 2009. On that date, he mined what is now called the "Genesis block of Bitcoin."
His reward? 50 bitcoins.
Those 50 coins from the Genesis block are now worth $5 million.
This is somewhat technical, but TLDR, in order for the blockchain to work, Satoshi had to mine 50 coins every 10 minutes. He did this until he eventually accumulated a personal stash of 1 million coins.
1 million Bitcoin
That's 4.8% of all Bitcoin in circulation.
Those 1 million coins have sat untouched in his public wallet for over a decade. They have not been accessed or spent since January 2009.
At $100,000 BTC, Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet is currently worth:
$100 billion
By our count of the richest people in the world, Satoshi Nakamoto ranks at #17.
What Happened to Satoshi?
No one knows. Two years after launching Bitcoin, Nakamoto disappeared from the internet. On April 23, 2011, Nakamoto sent Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn an email saying: "I've moved on to other things."
No one has heard a peep from Satoshi since. And his 1 million coins – $100 billion – are just sitting there untouched in a digital wallet.
He must be dead, right? Who could sit on $100 billion without cashing in at least $1 billion??!!
Do you think Satoshi Nakamoto is alive? Do you think he's on track to be the richest person in the world?
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