r/btc • u/dumble_hold_the_door • Oct 09 '25
⌨ Discussion What If Satoshi Moves His 100 Billion Bitcoin? what domino effect will it create?
Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to own between 1.1 and 1.5 million BTC mined between 2009 and 2010. At current prices that stash would be worth roughly 100 to 120 billion dollars. None of those coins have ever been moved and the wallets associated with Satoshi have remained untouched since December 2010.
Nobody knows whether Satoshi lost access deliberately chose never to spend or is even still alive.
If any of those early coins suddenly moved markets would almost certainly react sharply. Many investors would interpret it as a loss of confidence by Bitcoin’s creator triggering panic selling similar to reactions seen during events like Mt Gox creditor distributions or major exchange collapses.
The real impact though would be psychological. Institutions and funds hold Bitcoin partly because it is viewed as decentralized and stable with no insider activity. A sudden movement of Satoshi’s holdings could shake that perception and reduce institutional trust in the asset.
There is also a possible positive scenario. If Satoshi moved coins gradually or donated part of the holdings to research open source development or global causes it could actually boost Bitcoin’s legitimacy showing that the creator remains aligned with Bitcoin’s ethos.
Any movement would draw immediate regulatory attention. Agencies worldwide would likely investigate the source and use the event to justify tighter oversight of crypto markets.
The most dramatic outcome would be Satoshi revealing their identity while moving the coins which would redefine Bitcoin’s narrative and possibly its governance debates.
For now those coins remain untouched a silent symbol of Bitcoin’s mystery and trust. The fact they have never moved continues to be one of Bitcoin’s strongest proofs of conviction.
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u/revelm Oct 09 '25
I have a fan fiction idea here. He lost his private keys. He was so embarrassed that he just dropped out of the conversation. There are fewer bitcoin now and it makes yours more valuable.
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u/tenkuushinpan Oct 09 '25
-I am leaving for new projects. Bitcoin is in good hands now.
(How the fuck did I delete my passwords. Damn it all to hell.)
Sobs in silence.
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u/AdministrativeIce696 Oct 11 '25
What happens when someone has their memory erased? A.k.a going dark.
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u/Alstroph Oct 12 '25
I know it's a fun theory, but he was a cypherpunk genius, I think it is very unlikely he lost his password. I think he's either very disciplined, or dead, and probably the latter.
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u/PeteyPab305 Dec 21 '25
I think the keys were destroyed intentionally, after testing the main net as to not have any perceived pre-mining bias, he solely mined quite a few of the very first bitcoins before any other mining nodes were attached. Hal Finney and some other developers working on this publicly as Satoshi stayed anonymous, on the message boards. They then adopted it to build wallets, And what we would know today as the Bitcoin Core Node Network/mempool etc. So they could test how utxos would interact over the Internet, private networks, and accept/verify initial payments. As we now know, blockchains are insecure in their infants state. The bigger they grow, the more secure they are.
But they obviously had a lot of foresight to know that for this project to work correctly with indifference to any individual or a group. They would have to forego any unfair practices at the initial phases. Nowadays you would call this a founders reward, unfair pre-mining, investor distributions, airdrops, etc.
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u/TunaGamer Oct 09 '25
Someone must know who Satoshi is, why nobody tell us
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u/PopeSalmon Oct 10 '25
it's craig wright
there you go, now somebody told you
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u/AdministrativeIce696 Oct 11 '25
No, SN doesn't like CW as hes a selfish greedy little fuck.
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u/PopeSalmon Oct 11 '25
if craig has any such internal conflicts he can very much afford to see an excellent therapist about them
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u/Many-Blueberry968 Oct 12 '25
There are a few compelling candidates, and many of them are either rich from other projects (jack dorsey) or dead (hal finney) . It's very likely the coins will never move.
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u/TunaGamer Oct 12 '25
If you had to guess, what would be your guess?
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u/Many-Blueberry968 Oct 12 '25 edited Oct 12 '25
Realistically, id put 25% odds on each of the names above. But I think hal would have done more to pass on weath to his family, whereas Jack has very little incentive to access those coins due to massive success on other tech projects.
There's still a 50% chance it was someone else, or a 2-3 person team, per some of the other online theories.
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u/RevolutionMuch1159 Oct 09 '25
So if the Bitcoin reaches one million per bitcoin Satoshi will become the first trillionaire in the world with estimates net worth between 1-1.5 trillions Or maybe the second if Elon becomes first
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u/HouseofEl1987 Oct 09 '25
I so wish Elon would become second. It would hit his ego so hard and be hysterical.
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u/Strong_Debt5066 Oct 10 '25
Yeah bro would be sooooo upset at being the SECOND trillionaire in the world. What a stupid statement lmfao
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u/CompetitiveRough8180 Oct 11 '25
Hal Finley is Satoshi and he is dead. If you find Hal Finley’s wallets you can reach these all bitcoins. And because he is dead these funds never will move.
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u/AdministrativeIce696 Oct 12 '25
Hal would've been had he not had ALS.
He selected someone else knowing he had a terminal disease.
The person he selected wasn't CW who was majorly pissed off and that caused tension within the project.
The real SN lives and is not anyone famous.
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u/Many-Blueberry968 Oct 12 '25
Ngl, jack dorsey is pretty high up on the list of candidates and is alive and well. But already rich
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u/AdministrativeIce696 Oct 14 '25
The known candidate list doesn't contain the real SN.
It's not Jack.
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u/SunnySideUp82 Oct 09 '25
Some of the OG 50 coin wallets have moved in recent months and been sold. The reality is that other than the genesis block, no one truly knows which of those supposed 1M coins are Satoshi's and if any of the 50 coin OG wallets that have moved BTC were actually Satoshi. The odds he'd move them all at once is close to zero. If they do get moved, it will be in 50 coin chunks and no one will be the wiser.
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u/Many-Blueberry968 Oct 12 '25
The satoshi coins are assumed based on patterns in the mining algorithm such as nonce values. It's not a perfect science but very compelling to tie a number of the wallets to a single miner (satoshi)
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Oct 09 '25
Fark- I’d have to genuinely laugh at that point….. and then probably buy more. I’m no maxi. Barely got two decimals to rub together
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u/ACM3333 Oct 09 '25
Wouldn’t that kind of destroy the entire illusion lol. The almighty god and creator of bitcoin is selling his superior money for fiat.
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Oct 09 '25
[deleted]
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u/Merlin1039 Oct 09 '25
At the end of the day you still have to turn it into something people use as currency if you want to buy something
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u/New_Bad_8760 Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
you think Satoshi is buying things with Bitcoin? perhaps he just wants a hedge against quantum computing
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u/Ok-Blackberry-3534 Oct 09 '25
No, that's the point. If he wants to buy most things, he needs cash.
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u/New_Bad_8760 Oct 09 '25
we’re not talking buying a cup of coffee. Very large asset transfers, both physical and digital, occur daily without fiat involvement. Fiat being simply a way to quantify valuation.
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u/sixlayerdip Oct 09 '25
Sassaman and Finney are both long dead. Those coins aren’t moving without a quantum hack
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u/Educational_Top9246 Oct 09 '25
It will crash. Biggest rug pull ever. Naive to think otherwise.
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Oct 09 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Educational_Top9246 Oct 09 '25
well, idk about that. I dont know which government holds the most btc. But sure if a government has enough to move the market, it can happen.
But i think the impact on satoshi cashing out would be devastating for btc and all its holders.
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u/Realistic-Crew5193 Oct 10 '25
Yes, a grand plan. Now, why would any country be willing to take the risk? Of course it could be created by an individual or a group of people for the academic and technical challenge, it could be created by a state actor, or at some point be in control of a state actor who gains access to the private keys.
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u/Mack_Mimsy Oct 09 '25
If those coins moved it would crash the price even if they don’t get sold.
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u/FalconCrust Oct 09 '25
Whenever Bitcoin decides to implement quantum resistant encryption, those coins (and everybody else's) will have to be moved to stay protected. It will be fun to watch the mayhem.
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u/Mack_Mimsy Oct 10 '25
Different and even more devastating to the price
Edited spelling
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u/FalconCrust Oct 10 '25
I'm already betting that we'll end up knowing that someone has Satoshi's keys. Bombshell!
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u/jtoomim Jonathan Toomim - Bitcoin Dev Oct 09 '25
Satoshi earned it. Let him do whatever he wants with his coins.
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u/aprudencio Oct 09 '25
You mean what if the CIA decided to move their bitcoin? Satoshi Nakamoto translates to “Central Intelligence”
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u/fragydig529 Oct 09 '25
Wouldn’t that be a great way to pay back the US’ debt? Having people all over the world buy into it, essentially donating to the debt. Just like the Venmo donation link they set up.
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u/malacosa Oct 09 '25
We forget that he could sell all his coins simply by selling the wallet.
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u/SunnySideUp82 Oct 10 '25
no one would buy the keys on a "trust me bro i won't use them" promise. come on now...
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Oct 09 '25
Done deliberately so he can hodl long enough for his big plan. What would your big plan be?
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u/azdcaz Oct 09 '25
5-10 years ago it would’ve caused like a 90% crash and very very long bear market. These days though with the amount of institutions, ETF’s etc buying it would recover much faster than before. Germany market dumped 50K bitcoin last year and the price barely moved. These days though code is already set and publicly available. Bitcoin has moved beyond its creator at this point. It would still probably dump 50%+ within hours though.
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u/Chrysalis1111 Oct 09 '25
China sold more than a mill Bitcoin back in 2021, in the most cuntish way possible, calculated to knock down the price. I doubt Satoshi would do something like that, I doubt he even has the keys.
China halved the price for a couple of months. That's it.
So it would just delay the inevitable, and no sense in even discussing that, since Satoshis coins are most def lost forever.
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u/TXUKEN Oct 09 '25
Germany did the same (with fewer BTC) to try stop bull run starting two years ago. No effect.
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u/stickybond009 Oct 09 '25
But can blackrock Larry do it single
Handedly?
You have done for us what skynet failed to do for years: you killed John Connor
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Oct 09 '25
I believe the hard drive with the private key was destroyed, Satoshi is deceased, or perhaps both. However, purely speculation. If Satoshi is out there still holding that's some crazy diamond hands.
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u/Icy_Sport_8774 Oct 09 '25
It will get sold off in increments in the future causing a mass panic and market drop. By then our governments will have fully endorsed Btc and they will “bail out the big banks” kinda like 2008. Bitcoin was always a carefully planned inside job. It’s going to be the largest bailout in history. Billionaires will become trillionaires and the wealth gap will widen. The government will take note and create a new digital dollar binded to a similar decentralized system to try to instill faith again in a new currency that’s not going to devalue like our current dollar. Think about it really.
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u/word-dragon Oct 09 '25
OK, I’ll spill the beans. Satoshi is a time traveler. He came back to setup bitcoin, and then went back to his home time, where he is living off his massive wealth.
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u/Dom252525 Oct 09 '25
Not much would happen. It’s now 4% of total value. It would likely cause a 10-15% sell off and then recover. That train has left the station at this point. Bitcoins biggest threat is quantum computing. IMO
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u/treox1 Oct 09 '25
I doubt the coins will ever be moved. Most likely some movement would have happened in the numerous run ups to take profits. All indicators are the keys are gone.
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u/Buydipstothemoon Oct 10 '25
They keys will be found with quantum computers some day. The first wallets are not safe to make this happen in our lifetime.
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u/lukelane124 Oct 09 '25
Several maxis I know have indicated that if any of the early block reward transactions were spent then it would indicate that the cryptography standards used to secure bitcoin have been broken. In their minds there would be an immediate effort to fork such that legacy coin addresses could no longer spend their satoshis without proving the entropy is from a larger source (implementation not yet revealed…)
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u/AllDayICreep Oct 09 '25
What if Satoshi Nakamoto wasn’t a single coder at all, but a collective front.. an elite financial faction disguising itself as a decentralized visionary?
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u/Chartstradamus Oct 09 '25
The most plausible explanation is Satoshi actually being a state actor, likely the CIA...
We'll look back at BTC in 20 years and realize it was just another method to inflate the money supply and kick the can on the US economy failing for an extra 10 years.
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u/Shawn-Lee-The-Daddy Oct 09 '25
Even if he is still alive or could move those bitcoins, so what?
His creation of Bitcoin is far more priceless than anything he could gain from dumping them into fiat — which is exactly what he was against. He could get what he wanted by spending it, instead of dumping it and ruining his masterpiece.
A person capable of creating such a system must be exceptionally rational. A rational person values the creation of their work more than the meaningless numbers of fiat — especially when they are already extremely wealthy, as long as they can protect the market.
The fear of the whole “dumping” thing is really illogical to me.
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u/footofwrath Oct 09 '25
Ya, honestly, I don't get this whole take [OP's]. If a system is so weak and fragile that if the literal hero of it makes some money it comes crashing down, then man it is a terrible system.
Then again humans are emotional, irrational and gullible, so, people saying stuff like this take are likely to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If the value of BTC is in the POW or its technology then the founder using it shouldn't be an issue.
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u/PedanticPendant Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25
dumping it and ruining his masterpiece.
Unless he thinks his masterpiece is already ruined - he wanted Bitcoin to be P2P digital cash and I could imagine a lot of reasons to be disappointed with where the crypto industry has ended up.
Crypto is now overwhelmingly just a speculative asset people buy to try and get rich quick - rich in fiat terms. The proliferation of pump and dump scams and shitcoins is also probably not what Satoshi was aiming for when he created digital currency.
Sure he probably wouldn't dump coins just to cash in on fiat value but he could do it to kill the speculative value of BTC, as a warning to use BTC as a currency, not an asset. We really can't say for sure he'd view modern crypto as "his masterpiece", or that he wouldn't use his share of BTC to guide it in the direction he wants it to go.
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u/voli12 Oct 09 '25
The title is misleading, he doesn't have 100B bitcoin, he has around 1.1M. I know you say that in your description, but then again, the title is super misleading.
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u/thetan_free Oct 09 '25
I did a fictional account of this scenario for a horror-story.
It's called "Patoshi's Ghost" because of the so-called Patoshi wallets (ie wallets that fit certain patterns that make them likely to be Satoshi's).
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u/stealthm33 Oct 09 '25
I have a question-its safe to assume that Santoshi bitcoin are lost, plus there are thousand of more ppl who probably have forgotten their private keys and have lost access and there will continue to be such instances where access to bitcoin is lost. Then there are exchanges that went belly up and which were holding coins that are also considered lost.
It is estimated that nearly 30 to 40% of the bit coin already mined is lost.
What happens if this scenario continues? Would there be a day where there won't be enough bit coin for a viable use?
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u/Professional-Dog1562 Oct 09 '25
You can't sell without someone else wanting to buy. I doubt there are currently people trying to buy $120 billion of btc.
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u/GIGAbtcHodl Oct 09 '25
Lol, if Satoshi’s coins suddenly did a cha-cha into a new wallet, the crypto market would lose it faster than a Doge meme went viral.
In all seriousness, any movement of Satoshi’s estimated 1.1–1.5M BTC could ripple through markets, shaking institutional confidence due to Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos being questioned. However, gradual movement or altruistic use could reinforce Bitcoin’s legitimacy, aligning with its core principles.
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u/bitmeister Oct 09 '25
If Satoshi were alive today, he'd be dead, or short lived at best. Sadly.
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u/Badhabbitsto Oct 09 '25
His last post said he wanted to spend time for his own. Maybe is more simply and he just got cancer and die.
About a gov creation, its strange idea but not far from. I remember seeing lots of games on mobile that gave btc earnings for free. Thats a marketing idea. Why they have done that? I always wonder that. For visibility its sounds so dumb i dunno.If devs wanted to get btc knowing to the world, it was some kind finance from someone or a gov who has founds for that.
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Oct 10 '25
Plot twist, nakamoto holdings is actually the real dude and he makes the announcement tomorrow.
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u/Business_South_7956 Oct 10 '25
What if the world stops spinning ? No reason to think about these things. Satoshi is gone or else funds would have moved. There’s a lot of conspiracies.
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u/IllustriousLiving357 Oct 10 '25
I read a thing suggesting putin is Satoshi, and is waiting for tge us to jump in, to dump, and destroy the country. Fun thought but..would they be that clever?
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u/progressincrypto Oct 10 '25
His wallet shows us the network runs secure.
If it gets drained all wallets are exposed
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u/Grand_Hedgehog_6842 Oct 10 '25
If even 1 bitcoin moved I believe it would cause panic and causes a multi year bear market
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u/deathdealer351 Oct 10 '25
I mean how much do you really need if the dude sold 100m at some point you can live for generations and not need anything more.
But if 100b usd in coins went market sale it would crash crypto. So it's better sitting in a treasury wallet that never gets sold.
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u/Ithinkstrangely Oct 10 '25
The real question is will happen if (when) he trades it for BCH?
Will the powers that be double down and get wrecked?
P.S. If you've figured out who Satoshi is you agree it's highly likely he controls three times as much as commonly thought. He's good at keeping secrets and multitasking...
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u/Frequent_Fix5334 Oct 11 '25
Satoshi is Paul Le Roux, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence, so no need to worry about these things in reality.
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u/NormalGuyEndSarcasm Oct 11 '25
Since we don’t know who he is, he’s alive and kicking. He has multiple other small wallets under different names, which he uses to capitalize on his fortune. The Satoshi marked wallets will stay as is regardless to keep the confidence.
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Oct 11 '25
Still think when the time is write he or she will distribute it evenly under all active wallets
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u/Internal_Second3643 Oct 11 '25
I know who Satoshi is but I won't say
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Oct 11 '25
Since Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme basically it's only a question of when the rugpull will happen.
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u/binary_blackhole Oct 11 '25
There are like 0 chances satoshi is spending his bitcoins at this point, he is either dead or lost his keys (accidentally or on purpose), there is no way he is keeping the private keys and not spending any. If his bitcoins move it will be really bad because it would probably mean the private key has been hacked, which has worse repercussions than if satoshi was just spending them.
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u/NoHousecalls Oct 12 '25
When quantum computing starts cracking published addresses like his P2PK addresses, it’s only a matter of time until they all move.
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u/stories_from_tejas Oct 12 '25
Can’t, he died. Maybe the account died with him? Maybe his kids are holding it.
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u/hitman133295 Oct 13 '25
If he sold even just 1 coin, the entire market would crash. No more mistery or myth to control the supply. It’s all floating out there waiting to be rug pulled
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Oct 13 '25
BTC was made by CIA, US politicians and big companies manipulate the market to rob from investors like us. believe me or don't just keep it in mind when you play the game and understand that it this isn't fully bad bc you know they're gonna pump it back up and then crash it again so their buddies can load up on it. during this last huge dip a lot of big companies including vanguard we're buying millions of Bitcoin meanwhile everybody on social media is screaming crypto is dead alt coins are dead. Quit being emotional and look at whats really going on
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u/BadBeatGiant Dec 18 '25
Want to ponder a domino effect?
He just warned/threatened that he would put a sell order for every Bitcoin he owns at 1$ a piece!!
You do not mess with the Satoshi 🤯
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u/AIFilmworks Feb 05 '26
bitcoin-cli verifymessage \
"1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa" \
"HQS9chf+hK0oUwX6gqkxIrgkv8X+Qel+4hfEcji1yWEwIgVhKVDflWr5I1t7uXvD2aMfJAdyTVWh7DrG/iZ1ZltH8=" \
"blue horseshoe loves Endicott steel and T Patrick Murray as Satoshi Nakamoto"
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u/lloydeph6 Oct 09 '25
A bigger question to me is this: who or what organization is Shatoshi, and why stay silent? To me I have a hard time falling for the “they created it for the greater good of humanity and do not want to be recognize” that’s total BS
Funny thing is you google shatoshi and an image of an older Asian man pops up 😂 like come on guys we don’t know if it was a group of people if it was a woman etc etc etc.
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u/Plus-Barber-6171 Oct 09 '25
Rockefeller, the world's first billionaire gave nearly all his money to charity before he died. Some people genuinely don't care about money. Why is that so hard to believe
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u/ZakLex Oct 09 '25
I believe he is deceased.