Some of the 119,756 Bitcoin that was stolen from crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016 has started moving again.

According to a series of tweets posted by Whale Alert on July 27-28, wallet addresses known to be associated with one of the largest breaches ever of a crypto exchange moved 3503 Bitcoin (BTC) worth roughly $38.7 million over 12 transactions.

The largest individual movement was of 476.32 BTC, or approximately $5.2 million, while the smallest was 2.612703 BTC, or $28,849.

To date, the hackers responsible for the Bitfinex breach have moved only 1-2% of the funds they stole from the exchange in August 2016. The HODLing strategy appears to be paying off as the haul was only worth $72 million at the time. Its now worth $1.3 billion.

The potential impact of such a large number of coins dumped into the crypto market could be problematic. However, the price of Bitcoin was mostly unaffected when 50 BTC of the tokens in old addresses associated with Satoshi Nakamoto moved in May.

The lack of movement may suggest that criminals are facing difficulties laundering digital assets as tighter regulations are enforced. Cointelegraph reported in June that 736 BTC from previous transfers from wallets associated with the hack went to the Russian darknet marketplace Hydra and some actually ended up back at Bitfinex.

More here:

$39M of Bitcoin Stolen in 2016 Bitfinex Hack Is on the Move - Cointelegraph

ZUG, Switzerland, July 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bitcoin Association, the Switzerland-based global industry organization that advances Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), has named Patrick Prinz, CFA as its new Europe & Operations Manager. Working out of the Association's headquarters in "Crypto Valley" Zug, Switzerland, Prinz will serve two roles advance the business growth ofBitcoin SV throughout Europe and support the operational needs of the organization globally.

Bitcoin Association supports Bitcoin SV because it is the only blockchain protocol adhering to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's original design and vision for Bitcoin to become a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and global data ledger for enterprise.The Bitcoin SV ecosystem has rapidly grown to over 428 known Bitcoin SV projects and venturesworldwide.Developers and businesses are discovering the value of the Bitcoin blockchain when it massively scales a public ledger capable of huge transaction volumes, micropayments, greater data capacity, smart contracts, tokenization, and many advanced applications.

A true believer in this Satoshi Vision for Bitcoin, Prinz has a strong background in financial services and strategy consulting.Most recently, he worked as a senior investment advisor for a global asset management group.Prinz advised on emerging technologies, and discovered the benefits of having a single, massively scalable, public, auditable ledger for storing any type of data and allowing value transfer at a micropayment level only possible using the Bitcoin SV blockchain.

Previously, Prinz was a consultant at a leading strategy consulting firm acting as advisor to international banks on how to incorporate complex regulatory requirements and adapt business models to industry paradigm shifts.He began his career in corporate and investment banking, working at Deutsche Bank and Citi. Prinz holds a Master of Science degree in Banking and Finance and a Bachelor of Science degree in International Business Administration.

Speaking on his appointment, Prinz said: "Bitcoin SV is finally fulfilling the potential that initially excited me about Bitcoin many years ago to achieve efficiencies as the single public data ledger and micropayment system for the world. As I was puzzled by the fact that innovation and development were not happening on BTC, I did my own extensive research and realized that Satoshi Nakamoto's original design and the Bitcoin white paper always had the answers to achieve a massively scalable global public blockchain. With scaling comes efficiency, and with efficiency come innovation and entrepreneurship which is all happening on Bitcoin SV with the emergence of completely new business models powered by microtransactions and the immutable public ledger that Bitcoin is. I am thrilled to join Bitcoin Association to work with businesses and entrepreneurs to educate them on the transformative power which Bitcoin SV brings to the world."

Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of Bitcoin Association, commented: "With Patrick's addition, we welcome to our team another high-caliber professional with international business experience. Patrick will play a vital role in operational management as we grow our headquarters in Zug, Switzerland.He will also be a strong business voice for Bitcoin SV across Europe with his financial services knowledge, effective communication skills, and passionate belief in Bitcoin's true power."

Patrick's hire is the latest step in the global expansion of Bitcoin Association.He joins two other regional business managers - Lise Li (China) and Ella Qiang (Southeast Asia, based in Singapore) - all with considerable experience in both Bitcoin and business. Additional team members come from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, China, and New Zealand.The staff is further supported by Bitcoin Association Global Ambassadors in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Panama, Russia and CIS region, the Scandinavia region, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, and the United States.

About Bitcoin Association

Bitcoin Associationis the Switzerland-based global industry organization which advances the Bitcoin SV digital currency and blockchain. Trading as BSV, Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) is the original Bitcoin protocol created by Dr. Craig S. Wright. The Association brings together enterprises, start-up ventures, developers, merchants, exchanges, service providers, blockchain transaction processors (miners), and others in the Bitcoin SV ecosystem to advance the growth of Bitcoin commerce. The Association seeks to build a regulation-friendly ecosystem that fosters lawful conduct while encouraging technology innovation.

To hear from Bitcoin SV industry leaders, attend or watch the CoinGeek Liveconference September 30-October 2, 2020. It will be a hybrid live + virtual event, with live venues in New York, USA and London, UK.

SOURCE Bitcoin Association

More here:

Bitcoin Association hires Patrick Prinz as Europe & Operations Manager to further advance Bitcoin SV - PRNewswire

Today, every person is familiar with cryptocurrencies, the most popular one being Bitcoins. Satoshi Nakamoto is told to being the founder of bitcoin. He is the one that is responsible for writing the bitcoin code.

The first-ever bitcoin was mined on January 3rd, 2009. This marked the creation of the worlds most popular cryptocurrency. Till today Satoshi is being treated as a mystery person and no much information is available about him. In this article, lets talk about some interesting facts about the bitcoin creator.

Earlier bitcoin developers pointed that Satoshi Nakamoto may not be a single person. There could be more persons involved in the development of the bitcoin code. It is not even known that the so-called satoshi is male or female. Satoshi only communicated digitally via emails and forums, no communication over the phone or in-person to any bitcoin user is traced to date. Some sources claimed that he is a Japanese national born on April 5, 1975.

As the true identity of the bitcoin founder is unknown till the date, some sources suggest that even the name Satoshi Nakamoto is derived by joining the first letter of four famous brands.

Samsung and Toshiba Satoshi

Nakamichi and Motorola Nakamoto

This derivation even made a claim that the bitcoin code is developed by the effort of the above four brands.

Another interesting fact about Nakamoto is about the number of bitcoins he owns, It is said that he owns 1 million bitcoins, which makes a net worth of 2.6 billion US Dollars. It is also said that only about 500 bitcoins have been used or spend. This gives bitcoin the title of Ponzi Scheme because the founder itself owns a significant share.

Some sources also claim that Satoshi Nakamoto is actually dead. In order to support this, they put forward an argument that the first bitcoin transaction was done by Satoshi Nakamoto and the person who receives it was Hal Finney. Hal Finney passed away in 2014.

Bitcoins can be divided into smaller units, the smallest unit is called satoshi. Satoshi represents one hundred millionths of a full bitcoin.

The founder of bitcoin disappeared from the crypto community in the spring of 2011. Till then the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto existed as a mystery. Even if the plausible Satoshi came out to reveal his identity, he will probably have to deal with all the ongoing doubts to prove his identity. I am damn sure that anyone who is engaged with Bitcoin or other crypto coins have the doubt about the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Here we revealed some of the interesting facts about the Bitcoin creator.

Follow this link:

Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto: 5 Facts Probably You Didn't Know!

Ethereum has not only surged to its highest price for over a year, it has tapped milestone highs in other on-chain metrics as well. Today is the networks 5th anniversary.

ETH 1.0 is still proof of work, which means there are still miners seeking profits by producing more blocks. Mining profitability is mostly a product of difficulty and price, and when prices are high, so is profitability.

Hash rate is a measure of the computational power on the network, and the higher they are, the healthier and more secure the network is. For Ethereum, the hash rate has hit its highest level since November 2018.

According to bitinfocharts, the ETH hash rate has just reached 201.59 TH/s, its highest for 20 months.

The highest it has ever been for Ethereum was just under 300 TH/s during the crypto boom of January 2018. Once the network migrates to ETH 2.0 over the next year or two, the hash rate will become a thing of the past as the consensus mechanism switches to proof of stake.

Senior research analyst at Decentral Park, Elias Simos, observed that the percentage of revenue coming from network fees is the highest it has ever been and ten times what it was earlier this year.

This is no surprise since the average transaction fee is now almost $2, according to bitinfocharts. The median transaction fee has surged to its highest level for two years and, unlike previous anomalous spikes, does not appear to be slowing down.

The recent DeFi boom, which began in May, has been responsible for the increased demand on the Ethereum network, and the resultant gas fee rises.

Ethereum prices, meanwhile, are holding above $300, which is a good sign for further upwards momentum. The last time they topped $300 was in June and July 2019, and prices only remained above it for 18 days.

This time around, things look stronger for Ethereum, and on-chain metrics indicate that it could still be undervalued. Momentum has likely been driven by the imminent launch of the final public Beacon Chain testnet, dubbed Medalla. If ETH prices jumped 30% on a testnet launch, imagine what the mainnet will do to them, hopefully later this year.

All of the above takes place on the 5th Birthday of the network. Its safe to say that it has come a long way since then. Speaking toCryptoPotatowas Kosala Hemachandra, founder and CEO of one of the most commonly used ETH wallets MyEtherWallet.

He said:

In the last 5 years, Ethereums growth across the board has been exponential. In some ways, it has redefined what blockchain technology is capable of. Today, the Ethereum community has many passionate developers, dapps that are friendly to new users, and plenty of well documented concepts.

As weve seen with past Ethereum iterations, ETH 2.0 will once again change the definition of blockchain technology by creating a secure and sustainable system capable of competing with centralized scaling solutions.

Enjoy reading? Please share:

Click here to start trading on BitMEX and receive 10% discount on fees for 6 months.

Source: https://cryptopotato.com/5th-birthday-ethereum-miners-rejoice-over-high-network-fees/

Visit link:

Satoshi Nakamoto mined over 1.1 million BTC, report ...

In brief:

Few details are known about the private creator of Bitcoin, and new evidence might reveal why. Analysis of early Bitcoin code hints that Satoshi Nakamoto may have relied on a Russian proxy server to mask his location.

According to a report from Cointelegraph, a section in Bitcoin's early code exhibits signs of obfuscation via the possible use of a cipher.

The apparent cipher appears within a file dubbed "Bitcoin v0.1.0 irc.cppm. The latter part refers to Bitcoin's Internet Relay Chat channels. The code apparently links to a proxy IP address associated with the now-defunct Russian Internet service provider Anders Telecom. Much like a VPN, a proxy hides the physical location of an IP address.

The inclination is that Nakamoto may have used a Russian Proxy server to avoid detection. Tracing the IP address apparently pulls up a user named "Sergey," employing the same proxy as Satoshi. Per the report, Sergey posted reviews of hotels in Vietnam in December 2008 and January 2009.

Not everyone is convinced that the findings actually mean anything.

"The whole story reminds me a little 'you can make statistics say anything you want.' For me it's a simple reminder about the expected format of some variable in order to know how to process it later and take it at random," CTO of GEODB Javier Estrella told Cointelegraph.

Still, the conversations between Satoshi and early members of the Bitcoin community seem to indicate that IRC was used in conjunction with identity obfuscation.

As for why Satoshi would use a Russian proxy, in particular, it may have something to do with Russia's disconnect from western intelligence agencies. Either that or Satoshi was a Russian named Sergey. Now that would be a twist.

Here is the original post:

How Satoshi Nakamoto may have kept his identity secret ...

Bitcoin is frequently referred to as cryptocurrency a kind of currency that is entirely virtual. In simple terms, its an online electronic form of cash. It was invented in 2009, by an unknown person by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto.

The concept of Bitcoin was to create a payment system without a mediator i.e a bank. Bitcoin is a group of nodes, that run Bitcoin codes and store in what is called Blockchain. Click the-bitqt-app.com/ to know more.

Blockchains are a store of blocks. And each block consists of a group of transactions. Computers embedded with the blockchains can access the blocks and view the transactions stored within the blocks, which alludes that Bitcoin transactions are completely real and transparent.

Bitcoin operates on a vast public ledger, called Blockchain. All transactions made in Bitcoin is recorded in Blocks. The Blocks, in turn, are screened in a peer-to-peer network for authorization.

This confirms that the bitcoin transaction is completely transparent.

People acquire Bitcoins in one of the three ways specified below:

Whenever a Bitcoin transaction happens, the new transaction has to be entered into the blocks stored in Blockchain.

To make this happen, complex sums need to be worked out, for which powerful computers have to be set up. And occasionally the owners of the computers solving the transactions are rewarded with a bitcoin.

This is called Bitcoin Mining. At present, the sums to record transactions are made complicated to avoid generating too many bitcoins.

You can start your Bitcoin journey with one of the below ways:

Many people prefer Bitcoin since it is not restricted by any government or central agencies like a bank.

There is also a high level of anonymity in Bitcoin transactions, which is preferred by a lot of people. Though the entire transactions are recorded, people would not know which account number belongs to which individual.

Bitcoin transactions are entirely operated through Bitcoin exchanges. As you get the idea of Bitcoin by now, you would have noticed that the Bitcoin exchanges are digital platforms.

Hence, face the common threats the other digital platforms are exposed to, like hackers, trojan attacks, and operational hitches.

This is a major setback, considering the fact that Bitcoin transactions are permanent and irreversible.

Bitcoin has been through its fair share of highs and lows but still going steady. The concept of doing your own financial transactions sans government regulations nor third party controls like a bank is fairly new and revolutionary.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin has a long way to go and the journey is certainly going to be thrilling and riveting.

See the original post here:

What are Bitcoins: Scam or real London Business News - London Loves Business

A federal court in Washington, D.C., is pushing ahead with charges against an underground Bitcoin exchange, ruling that Bitcoin counts as money under law. The ruling mostly brings the District of Columbia into line with the federal and state governments treatment of digital assets regarding money transmission and laundering. However it serves as a potent reminder that assuming Bitcoin can be used to circumvent financial laws is both wrong and dangerous.

Larry Dean Harmon, of Ohio, allegedly operated the Helix coin-mixing platform from 2014 to 2017, and scrambled over 354,468 BTC for the AlphaBay darknet marketplace and others. He was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and being an unlicensed money transmitter. Harmon had attempted to dismiss the unlicensed money transmission charges by arguing that Bitcoin is not money under existing law.

Coin mixers (sometimes known as tumblers) are online services that take users Bitcoins and attempt to scramble their transaction history by mixing them with others, before (usually) returning them to the originator. This, in theory, makes them less traceable to any illegal activity. As weve warned previously, no coin mixing service is operating legally and using one is regarded as extremely risky.

In her ruling, Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell used commonly-accepted principles to define moneythat is, a medium of exchange, a method of payment, and a store of value. Bitcoin is these things, she wrote. The ruling added that D.C. doesnt have a strict definition of the word money on its books, but may define money as it sees fit.

Satoshi says Bitcoin is money and property

Bitcoins own creator, Satoshi Nakamoto (Dr. Craig S. Wright) said himself that Bitcoin can be defined as money. Speaking to CoinGeek, he said:

Bitcoin as a cash system is both property and money. It can be said that there is nothing new under the sun and that certainly is the case with Bitcoin. I created Bitcoin to recover the link to age old tried and tested laws and rules. Bitcoin removes the ability to have an infinitely divisible and distributable digital system and returns it to a state of bailable property. That is, Bitcoin is the first digital asset that can be possessed. Because of this, there will be many more digital assets that are no longer able to be copied. In the future digital piracy will not exist. Right now, people will start to understand that Bitcoin was always money and that all of the anti-money laundering rules have always applied.

Bitcoin, now traded with the ticker symbol BSV, was not designed to be anonymous, or used as a tool to facilitate criminal activity. Despite what some promised in the past (and continue to promise even now), Bitcoin is not anonymous. Coin mixers are illegal and inherently untrustworthy. Many who used mixers or darknet marketplaces, either as vendors or customers, have learned this the hard way.

Unfortunately, they may continue to do soanonymity, under the guise of financial privacy is still a goal for many in the digital asset industry. There are so-called anonymous digital currencies designed exactly for that purpose, and additions made to coins like BTC and BCH that mask users identity and transaction details. Whether they work or will continue to work is questionable, as authorities in many countries have made it a goal to make those networks more transparent. If they cant, they will find ways to restrict their use.

Bitcoin BSV is an open and transparent ledger that protects users privacy, yet remains traceable to investigators should they require it. Remember that if a system is anonymous for the lawful but privacy-conscious, its also anonymous for the powerful, corrupt and criminalthe end result being a worse world for all. Bitcoin is money and property, and its use is subject to any laws covering those things.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

The rest is here:

Bitcoin is money, says DC courtbut of course it is - CoinGeek

Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins unknown creator, still remains one of the largest mysteries in the crypto industry. After 11 years of trying, nobody still knows the real identity of the individual or a group behind this name.

However, thanks to blockchains transparency and the ability to trace transactions experts believed that they at least know how much BTC Nakamoto has in his wallets.

Now, a new report by Whale Alert revealed that Nakamoto may have mined even more Bitcoin than originally believed. In fact, his wealth at this time may exceed $10 billion.

According to new information, Nakamoto may have mined more than 1.1 million BTC. He was Bitcoins first miner, and likely the only miner for quite some time. When BTC price started growing, others have joined the trend, but Nakamoto himself remained active for quite a long period.

Earlier this week, Whale Alert published an in-depth examination of the so-called Patoshi pattern, which indicates that Nakamoto may have mined 1,125,150 BTC.

Previously, it was believed that his mining efforts may have resulted in only around 600k-700k BTC. If the new estimate is true, then Nakamoto might be sitting on over $10.9 billion, according to current prices.

Whale Alert also says that Satoshi may have been responsible for a number of non-Patoshi pattern blocks. If this is true, he might very well have more than 5% of all BTC in his possession.

The topic of Satoshis wealth was as popular as the mystery surrounding his identity. Even more so, when earlier this year, researchers noted activity in two BTC wallets that hold the coins mined in 2009 and 2010.

Researchers determined that neither of the wallets belonged to Satoshi at the time, but that was before the idea of him being responsible for solving non-Patoshi pattern blocks emerged.

With this new information at hand, it is entirely possible that Satoshi is not only still alive, but also that he might still be active in the crypto industry. More than that, one of the transactions came with a message that Craig Wright, who claims to be the real Satoshi, is a liar and a fraud.

View original post here:

New report reveals the truth about how much BTC Satoshi mined - Invezz

Velas based in Zug, Switzerland celebrated their anniversary completing their first year. To watch it on Linkdln, users should follow CV Labs and users will be able to watch the livestream there.

Alex Alexandrov, Velas founder is the speaker at the event. Of note, Alex Alexandrov is the founder of CoinPayments.net too. He is also the board member of the Blockchain Society Canada. He is a Cryptocurrency educator, advisor, and public speaker for over the last 5 years. He is the Cyber Security and Blockchain advisor to Canadian, US, and Ukrainian governments, Europol, CIA, and FBI.

At the event alongside Alex Alexandrovs presentation, the world-renowned painter, Abdulla Qandeel will be doing a live painting.

Maheen Hernandez, Writer at The Currency Analytics opined: Velas Network (VLX) are making their one-year anniversary. Mind Blowing tech giants like Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, and Motorola put them altogether and you get Satoshi Nakamoto.

For those who are new, Velas Network AG is the worlds first Artificial Intuition empowered Blockchain Ecosystem.

With everyone claiming to be Nakamoto, the recent video from Velas is interesting. The video provides some deep insights and thoughts about Bitcoin and its origin. The video is very educative too. Several investors wow about how they never thought in the way it was presented in the video. The video has attracted lot of attention for its perspective on Satoshi.

Velas recently tweeted: Everyone has their theory on the exact origin of Satoshi Nakamoto. In this new weekly segment, we will dive into the exciting, Unique, and unusual elements of the crypto-verse. Velas is proud to present: Things you might not know about Crypto.

The video talks about the translation of the Japanese Name Satoshi Nakamoto, where Satoshi roughly translates to clear minded and quick witted, Naka means insight or relationship; and Moto which means the foundation.

If you put all the names of the tech giants like Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, and Motorola put them altogether and you get Satoshi Nakamoto. This the video states is something to think about. So, what do you think the real origin of Satoshi Nakamoto is?

It is interesting to see Satoshi Nakamoto from a totally different perspective. If this pseudonym is true about how it came about, there is likely to be a whole lot of economic theories and stories to uncover. Lets us wait for the Swiss blockchain network to unfold for the rest of the world.

See more here:

Velas (VLX) on Samsung, Toshiba, Nakamichi, and Motorola to be Satoshi Nakamoto on Blockchain - The Cryptocurrency Analytics

KEY POINTS

A new research by analytics firm Whale Alert reveals that the miner known as "Patoshi",while mining during the early days of Bitcoin, is in possession of 1,125,150 BTC, worth $10.9 billion. Patoshi, who is believedto beBitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, has also made the effort to protect the network from attacks during Bitcoins early days.

Patoshi is the name given by analyst Sergio Demian Lerner to the early Bitcoin miner who has a distinct pattern in themining activity. Lerner believes Patoshi is Satoshi based on a pattern left by using a modified version of Bitcoin Core, which Satoshi allegedly used.

The particular pattern could be found at the beginning of the network and also in the blocks that mined the Bitcoins sent to Hal Finney, the first person to received Bitcoins through the network. By connecting the two pieces of information together, Whale Alert deduced the identity of Patoshi.

Whale Alert also found out that Patoshi adjusted his mining speed between blocks to maintain the average time of 10 minutes. The analytics firm thought this was done to protect the network from a 51%attack, a malicious takeover of the network by bad actors. Also, Patoshi made sure he maintained 60%of the processing power while leaving enough blocks for other miners. The more miners joined the network, the more secure it was and the lesser the chance for a 51% attack to be successful. When Patoshi decided the network was strong enough, he reduced his blocks per 10 minutes so others have more chance of mining a block.

At some point, however, it became difficult to track Patoshis blocks so it was impossible to know if Patoshi (or Satoshi) had continued or stopped mining. Whale Alert said the node or computer (miner) used to mine the Patoshi blocks was turned off around May 2010. In total, 907 BTC was spent from the Bitcoins mined on the Patoshi blocks and 1,122,693 BTC was unspent.

Around the same time, Satoshi was active in the BitcoinTalk forum until Dec.12, 2010. Satoshi's last verified communication was an email to then-Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen. I wish you wouldnt keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle, Satoshi said.

Gold-colored Bitcoin coin on ground Photo: Andr Franois McKenzie on Unsplash

Read more from the original source:

Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto Believed To Have $10.9 ...

Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin, mined 1,125,150 BTC in the networks early daysa figure slightly bigger than was previously suggestedaccording to a report published on Monday. The report also estimated that Nakamoto had a network of at least 48 computers mining Bitcoin, with one computer coordinating the whole thing.

The report was written by Whale Alert, a pseudonymous researcher well-known in the crypto sphere for providing updates on the movements of Bitcoin. The analyst was one of the first to notice a spend of early mined Bitcoin in May, which some thought might belong to Nakamoto. Now they have delved more deeply into the origins of Bitcoins history.

The researcher was able to identify that 22,503 out of the first 54,316 Bitcoin blocks were mined by Nakamoto. Out of these blocks, 50 of them were spent, including a transaction of 10 Bitcoin to Hal Finney, an early Bitcoin enthusiast who died in 2014 from Lou Gehrig's disease.

We were able to make the most accurate estimate of the number of blocks mined and bitcoins owned by Satoshi: 1,125,150 bitcoin mined up to block 54,316 with an estimated total value of the unspent bitcoin of at least $10.9 billion USD in todays market, the report stated.

Whale Alerts report builds on a previous study by Sergio Lerner, head of innovation at IOV Labs, who first noticed a distinctive pattern used to identify Nakamotos Bitcoin. There is no label that identifies that Nakamoto mined a specific Bitcoin block, but there is a clear pattern that links many Bitcoin blocks together, including some blocks known to be owned by Nakamoto. Lerners latest estimate put the total around 1.1 million Bitcoin, although he did not provide a specific figure.

Whale Alert claimed to have found more details of the pattern that allowed them to identify more Nakamoto-mined blocks and exclude some false positives. These findings allowed us to exclude even more blocks that were not mined by Satoshi and provided us with a clearer image...which was especially valuable at higher block heights where the mining activity on the network increased drastically, said the report.

The report attributed a total of 22,503 Bitcoin blocks to Nakamoto, all within the first 54,316 blocks. It estimated that Nakamoto spent 907 Bitcoin (now worth $8.4 million) in total, leaving 1,122,693 Bitcoin ($10.4 billion) unspent. Quite the haul.

Whale Alert found that Nakamoto kept adjusting the processing power of his 48 computers to make sure he was mining 3.6 blocks on average every hour. This gave him 60% of the mining power on the network. Whale Alert pointed out that this was enough to protect the network, while still allowing other miners to participate.

Once the network grew and more miners joined, it appears that Nakamoto stopped mining in May 2010. The timing of the shutdown, the mining behavior, the systematic decrease in mining speed and the lack of spending strongly suggest that Satoshi was only interested in growing and protecting the young network, the report stated.

Whale Alert added that the Bitcoin fortune was unlikely to be ever spent. Not that anyone knows for sure.

Read the original:

Researcher finds more of Satoshi Nakamoto's lost Bitcoin ...

Satoshi Nakamotois the name used by the unknown person or persons who designedbitcoinand created its originalreference implementation.[1]As part of the implementation, they also devised the firstblockchaindatabase. In the process they were the first to solve thedouble-spendingproblem fordigital currency. They were active in the development of bitcoin up until December 2010.Nakamoto has claimed to be a man living inJapan, born on 5 April 1975.[2]However, speculation about the true identity of Nakamoto has mostly focused on a number ofcryptographyandcomputer scienceexperts of non-Japanese descent, living in the United States and Europe.[3]As of 24 May 2017, Nakamoto is believed to own up to roughly one million bitcoins,[4]with a value estimated at approximately $7 billion USD as of November 2017.Development of bitcoinIn October 2008, Nakamoto published a paper[5][6]on The Cryptography Mailing list at metzdowd.com[7]describing the bitcoin digital currency. It was titledBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. In January 2009, Nakamoto released the first bitcoin software that launched the network and the first units of the bitcoincryptocurrency, calledbitcoins.[8][9]Satoshi Nakamoto released the Version 0.1 of Bitcoin software on Sourceforge on 9 January 2009.Nakamoto claimed that work on the writing of the code began in 2007.[10]The inventor of bitcoin knew that due to its nature the core design would have to be able to support a broad range of transaction types. The implemented solution enabled specialised codes and data fields from the start through the use of apredicativescript.[11]Nakamoto created a website with the domain name bitcoin.org and continued to collaborate with other developers on the bitcoin software until mid-2010. Around this time, he handed over control of thesource code repositoryand network alert key toGavin Andresen,[12]transferred several relateddomainsto various prominent members of the bitcoin community, and stopped his involvement in the project. Until shortly before his absence and handover, Nakamoto made all modifications to the source code himself.The inventor left a text message in the first mined block which reads 'The Times 3 January 2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks'. The text refers to a headline inThe Timespublished on 3 January 2009. It is a strong indication that the first block was mined no earlier than this date.[13]The genesis block has a timestamp of 18:15:05 GMT on 3 January 2009. This block is unlike all other blocks in that it doesn't have a previous block to reference.[13]This required the use of custom code to mine it. Timestamps for subsequent blocks indicate that Nakamoto did not try to mine all the early blocks solely for himself.[13]As the sole, predominant early miner the inventor was awarded bitcoin at genesis and for 10 days afterwards.[14]Except for test transactions these remain unspent since mid January 2009.[14]The public bitcoin transaction log shows that Nakamoto's known addresses contain roughly one million bitcoin. As of 18 August 2017, this is worth over $6,012,000,000.[15][16]Due to the hardfork in whichBitcoin Cashwas made, creating one Bitcoin Cash for every bitcoin in circulation, he also owns roughly one million Bitcoin Cash, worth about $318 million.[17][16]Characteristics and identityNakamoto did not disclose any personal information when discussing technical matters.[3]He provided some commentary on banking andfractional-reserve banking. On hisP2P Foundationprofile as of 2012, Nakamoto claimed to be a 37-year-old male who lived inJapan,[18]but some speculated he was unlikely to be Japanese due to his use of perfectEnglishand his bitcoinsoftwarenot being documented or labelled in Japanese.[3]OccasionalBritish Englishspelling and terminology (such as the phrase "bloody hard") in both source code comments and forum postings led to speculation that Nakamoto, or at least one individual in the consortium claiming to be him, was ofCommonwealthorigin.[5][3][19]Stefan Thomas, a Swiss coder and active community member, graphed the time stamps for each of Nakamoto's bitcoin forum posts (more than 500); the resulting chart showed a steep decline to almost no posts between the hours of 5 a.m. and 11 a.m.Greenwich Mean Time. Because this pattern held true even on Saturdays and Sundays, it suggested that Nakamoto was asleep at this time.[3]If Nakamoto is a single individual with conventional sleeping habits, it suggests he resided in a region using theUTC05:00orUTC06:00time offset. This includes the parts of North America that fall within theEastern Time ZoneandCentral Time Zone, as well as parts of Central America, the Caribbean and South America.Satoshis initial email to Dai is dated22 August 2008; the metadata for this PDF (pdftk bitcoin.pdf dump_data) yields as theCreationDatethe value20081003134958-07'00'- this implies 3 October 2008 or a bit over a month later, which is consistent with the local date mentioned in the Cypherpunk mailing list email. This is an earlier draft than the final draft onbitcoin.org, which is dated20090324113315-06'00'or 24 March 2009; the timezone differs: -7 vs -6.[20]Gavin Andresenhas said of Nakamoto's code: "He was a brilliant coder, but it was quirky".[21]Possible identitiesThere is still doubt about the real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.[22]Nick SzaboIn December 2013, a blogger named Skye Grey linkedNick Szaboto the bitcoin whitepaper using astylometricanalysis.[23][24][25]Szabo is a decentralized currency enthusiast and published a paper on"bit gold", which is considered a precursor to bitcoin.[24][25]He is known to have been interested in using pseudonyms in the 1990s.[26]In a May 2011 article, Szabo stated about the bitcoin creator: "Myself,Wei Dai, andHal Finneywere the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dai's case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai)."[27]Detailed research by financial authorDominic Frisbyprovides much circumstantial evidence but, as he admits, no proof that Satoshi is Szabo.[28]Speaking onRT'sThe Keiser Report, he said "I've concluded there is only one person in the whole world that has the sheer breadth but also the specificity of knowledge and it is this chap...".[29]But Szabo has denied being Satoshi. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he said: 'Thanks for letting me know. I'm afraid you got it wrongdoxingme as Satoshi, but I'm used to it'.[30]Nathaniel Popper wrote in theNew York Timesthat "the most convincing evidence pointed to a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo."[31]Dorian NakamotoIn a high-profile 6 March 2014, article in the magazineNewsweek,[32]journalistLeah McGrath Goodmanidentified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American man living inCalifornia, whosebirth nameis Satoshi Nakamoto,[32][33][34]as the Nakamoto in question. Besides his name, Goodman pointed to a number of facts that circumstantially suggested he was the bitcoin inventor.[32]Trained as a physicist, Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. Nakamoto was laid off twice in the early 1990s and turnedlibertarian, according to his daughter, and encouraged her to start her own business "not under the government's thumb." In the article's seemingly biggest piece of evidence, Goodman wrote that when she asked him about bitcoin during a brief in-person interview, Nakamoto seemed to confirm his identity as the bitcoin founder by stating: "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it. It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection."[32][35]The article's publication led to a flurry of media interest, including reporters camping out near Dorian Nakamoto's house and briefly chasing him by car when he drove to an interview.[36]However, during the subsequent full-length interview, Dorian Nakamoto denied all connection to bitcoin, saying he had never heard of the currency before, and that he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as being about his previous work for military contractors, much of which was classified.[37]In a reddit "ask-me-anything" interview, he claimed he had misinterpreted Goodman's question as being related to his work for Citibank.[38]Later that day, the pseudonymous Nakamoto's P2P Foundation account posted its first message in five years, stating: "I am not Dorian Nakamoto."[39][40]However, it is generally believed that Nakamoto's P2P Foundation account had been hacked, and the message was not sent by him.[41][42][43]Hal FinneyHal Finney(4 May 1956 28 August 2014) was a pre-bitcoin cryptographic pioneer and the first person (other than Nakamoto himself) to use the software, file bug reports, and make improvements.[44]He also lived a few blocks from Dorian Nakamoto's family home, according toForbesjournalist Andy Greenberg.[45]Greenberg asked the writing analysis consultancyJuola & Associatesto compare a sample of Finney's writing to Satoshi Nakamoto's, and they found that it was the closest resemblance they had yet come across (including the candidates suggested byNewsweek,Fast Company,The New Yorker, Ted Nelson and Skye Grey).[45]Greenberg theorized that Finney may have been a ghostwriter on behalf of Nakamoto, or that he simply used his neighbor Dorian's identity as a "drop" or "patsy whose personal information is used to hide online exploits". However, after meeting Finney, seeing the emails between him and Nakamoto, his bitcoin wallet's history including the very first bitcoin transaction (from Nakamoto to him, which he forgot to pay back) and hearing his denial, Greenberg concluded Finney was telling the truth. Juola & Associates also found that Nakamoto's emails to Finney more closely resemble Nakamoto's other writings than Finney's do. Finney's fellowextropianand sometimes co-bloggerRobin Hansonassigned a subjective probability of "at least" 15% that "Hal was more involved than hes said", before further evidence suggested that was not the case.[46]Craig Steven WrightOn 8 December 2015,Wiredwrote thatCraig Steven Wright, an Australian former academic, "either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did".[47]Craig Wright took down his Twitter account and neither he nor his ex-wife responded to press inquiries. The same day,Gizmodopublished a story with evidence obtained by ahackerwho supposedly broke into Wright's email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Craig Steven Wright and computer forensics analystDavid Kleiman, who died in 2013.[48]A number of prominent bitcoin promoters remained unconvinced by the reports.[49]Subsequent reports also raised the possibility that the evidence provided was an elaborate hoax,[50][51]whichWiredacknowledged "cast doubt" on their suggestion that Wright was Nakamoto.[52]On 9 December, only hours afterWiredclaimed Wright was Nakamoto, Wright's home inGordon, New South Waleswas raided by at least ten police officers. His business premises inRyde, New South Waleswere also searched by police. TheAustralian Federal Policestated they conducted searches to assist theAustralian Taxation Officeand that "This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin."[53]According to a document released by Gizmodo alleged to be a transcript of a meeting between Wright and the ATO, he had been involved in a taxation dispute with them for several years.[48]On 2 May 2016, Craig Wright posted on his blog publicly claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. In articles released on the same day, journalists from theBBCandThe Economiststated that they saw Wright signing a message using the private key associated with the first bitcoin transaction.[54][55]Wright's claim was supported by Jon Matonis (former director of theBitcoin Foundation) and bitcoin developerGavin Andresen, both of whom met Wright and witnessed a similar signing demonstration.[56]However, bitcoin developer Peter Todd said that Wright's blog post, which appeared to contain cryptographic proof, actually contained nothing of the sort.[57]TheBitcoin Coreproject released a statement onTwittersaying "There is currently no publicly available cryptographic proof that anyone in particular is Bitcoin's creator."[58][59]Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik agreed that evidence publicly provided by Wright does not prove anything, and security researcherDan Kaminskyconcluded Wright's claim was "intentional scammery".[60][61]On 4 May 2016, Wright made another post on his blog promising to publish "a series of pieces that will lay the foundations for this extraordinary claim".[62][63]But the following day, he deleted all his blog posts and replaced them with a notice entitled "I'm Sorry", which read in part:I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.[64][65]In June 2016, theLondon Review of Bookspublished an article byAndrew O'Haganabout the events, based on discussions with Wright and many of the other people involved in claiming the identity of Satoshi.[66][67]It also reveals that the Canadian companynTrustwas behind Wright's claim made in May 2016.Other speculationsIn a 2011 article inThe New Yorker,Joshua Davisclaimed to have narrowed down the identity of Nakamoto to a number of possible individuals, including the Finnish economic sociologist Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta and Irish student Michael Clear, then a graduate student in cryptography atTrinity College Dublin.[68]Clear strongly denied he was Nakamoto,[69]as did Lehdonvirta.[70]In October 2011, writing forFast Company, investigative journalistAdam Penenbergcited circumstantial evidence suggesting Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto.[71]They jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase "computationally impractical to reverse" in 2008, which was also used in the bitcoinwhite paperby Nakamoto.[72]Thedomain namebitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed. All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.[71]In May 2013,Ted Nelsonspeculated that Nakamoto is really Japanese mathematicianShinichi Mochizuki.[73]Later, an article was published inThe Agenewspaper that claimed that Mochizuki denied these speculations, but without attributing a source for the denial.[74]A 2013 article,[75]inVicelistedGavin Andresen, Jed McCaleb, or a government agency as possible candidates to be Nakamoto. Dustin D. Trammell, a Texas-based security researcher, was suggested as Nakamoto, but he publicly denied it.[76]In 2013, two Israeli mathematicians, Dorit Ron andAdi Shamir, published a paper claiming a link between Nakamoto andRoss William Ulbricht. The two based their suspicion on an analysis of the network of bitcoin transactions,[77]but later retracted their claim.[78]Some considered Nakamoto might be a team of people;Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who read the bitcoin code,[79]said that Nakamoto could either be a "team of people" or a "genius";[19]Laszlo Hanyecz, a former bitcoin core developer who had emailed Nakamoto, had the feeling the code was too well designed for one person.[3]References

Read more:

Satoshi Nakamoto

Television alt-finance pundit and BTC proponent Max Keiser has been busy attacking Bitcoin SV on his social media accounts and in interviews. Its not rare for Keiser to produce outlandish statements on BTC prices, or slam public figures involved with non-BTC blockchains. But these can also be used as a barometer of which projects BTC and its army of public relations representatives see as the biggest threats.

Some more recent comments from the host of RTs Keiser Report came after Calvin Ayre, founder of Ayre Group and CoinGeek, accused him of being paid to promote BTC:

A few days prior, he posted a more generic anti-BSV meme, though BSV has not suffered any crises worthy of comparison to such a dramatic event:

In fact, that Bitcoin (BSV) has not suffered any technical problems since restoring the original Bitcoin protocol in early 2020 which is the opposite of a burning boat. That meme more accurately describes BTC and other altcoins, which have experienced problems with scaling, volume, high fees, and lost funds. These are often self-inflictedBitcoin can scale on-chain, yet BTC now touts the complex and problematic Lightning Network to handle most of its transactions. Bitcoin flourishes, with more and more applications developers choosing to build on it every daywhile BTC Core developers and Blockstream keep their network crippled.

The BSV development team has proved Bitcoin can scale on-chain, process thousands of transactions per second at low fees, and do a lot more. Bitcoin is capable of processing as much data as the internet itself. Those who say it couldnt, and who wasted years with their pointless scaling debate, are truly the captains of a sinking ship.

Speaking in an interview on Patrick Bet-Davids Valuetainment channel last month (which has over 2.4 million subscribers) Keiser listed off the reasons he thinks Dr. Craig Wright and Bitcoin BSV have little value:

It has been well documented in numerous sources that (Wrights) claims are bogus, Keiser said, and BSV is an outright fraud. He took particular issue with the way he conducts himself, and a series of lawsuits Wright brought against members of the BTC community that repeatedly made libelous comments to that extent, which he has lost or is in the process of losing.

He is absolutely laughed at in a year or two from now, the name will be forgotten forever.

We should note that most of the publicly available material on Dr. Wrights history have come from the yet-to-be-tried Ira Kleiman lawsuit in which Wright is the defendant, not the plaintiff. We should also note that none of the allegations that Keiser spouted off about Wrights claims are accurate whatsoever. We do not consider blog posts from sock puppets as legitimate sources of information.

Apparently not realizing the irony, Keiser then followed his attack on Wright by giving his reasons why it was better for Satoshi Nakamotos true identity to remain unknown forever:

If you have a known person attached to it, they become an attack vector. And people will attack that person. And so you dont want that. You know, who invented gold?

When Bet-David pointed out that gold is a naturally-occurring element and Bitcoin is a man-made technology, the conversation veered off on a tangent over whether God created man and thus Bitcoin too, and the evils of fiat money.

Wheres all this coming from?

Keiser, a former stand-up comedian and part-time stock trader, hosts The Keiser report on RT. He has been bullish on BTC on his RT show for many years, finding it a perfect fit for his anti-bank/government sentiments and contrarian views on finance and economics. These have often revolved around precious metals and alternative currencies. In the late 1990s he was CEO of the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which traded virtual securities based on the fortunes of movies and stars. In 2010, he also led a campaign against JPMorgan Chase by appealing to the public to buy silver, raising its price and closing JPMs short positions.

These views, coupled with his large audience, made him a darling of the BTC community. Keiser is also co-founder at Heisenberg Capital, a BTC venture capital fund. He recently told Cointelegraphs Allen Scott that he named the company after he started noticing that Bitcoin was becoming self-aware, and that humans as a species need to prove we are worthy of Bitcoin.

In 2020 he has predicted the BTC price will hit $50K, $100K and eventually $400K due to a collapse in the USD and economic/financial turmoil resulting from this years COVID-19 crisis. A dollar crash would surely increase the dollar value of BTC, along with the price of everything else. However BTCs chances of replacing it as a reserve currency are slim given its 3-7 transaction-per-second limit and spending alternatives that involve funding (and maintaining) off-chain payment channels.

As a popular broadcaster and long-time entertainment industry figure, Keiser is no doubt aware of the attention-grabbing potential any prediction of a six-figure BTC has. He and others have been making such predictions for years. In reality these viral statements more often result in temporary, short-term bumps in the BTC price than long-term injections of cash. However even short-term bumps are adequate to make large profits for speculative traders, at the expense of naive rush-buyers.

Whos actually listening?

The frequent animosity directed at Bitcoin BSV by BTC supporters whether coordinated, paid, or grassrootshas become predictable both in subject matter and its lack of substance. They have included soundbite campaigns in the mainstream media and on social networks, as well as collusion between some exchanges to delist BSV.

As Bitcoiners have pointed out, if BSV is as valueless as its detractors claim, then simply ignoring it would suffice. The counter-argument that BSV is a target because it takes the name Bitcoin and (rightfully) claims to be the original Bitcoin is hollow, since many other assets have done that over the years, and disappeared amid crashing prices and developer apathy.

The attacks are indicative of a strategy to play the man, not the ball. Most efforts are simply character assassinations on Dr. Wright. Theres very little material out there giving technical reasons why BSV doesnt work. There have been no signs on the BSV side that anything is technically amiss with its on-chain scaling vision, either. Developers continue to build new projects on the BSV blockchain and find new use-cases for its processing abilities, as well as utilize the old (and long forgotten) BTC promise of a micropayments economy.

BSV is the only network that can accurately (and perhaps even legally) be called Bitcoin. Its protocol is by far the closest to the original version released by Dr. Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, and its the only one that maintains Satoshis original vision.

Bitcoin, as BSV, creates a vast micropayments economy and can process all the worlds data on an open and auditable blockchain, secured by economic incentives. That which Max Keiser and his fellow bagholders proclaim in the mass media as Bitcoin is BTC, which devolved away from the original protocol and should be referred to as an altcoin.

Observers should regard shareable soundbites as just that. BTC pundits talk mainly about massive price rises and the personalities of their opponents. The BSV community is focused not on price, but on building long-term viability.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

Originally posted here:

Max Keiser's attacks on Bitcoin reveal BTC proponents see it as a threat - CoinGeek

Bitcoin, the first and largest cryptocurrency by market cap, appears to be in a period of relative quiescenceunusual for a coin famed for its volatility.

Traders have no doubt looked at recent Bitcoin price charts with unfathomable boredom. Since June 1, the price of Bitcoin hasnt budged much at all. Back then, it was worth $9,519. Now, its worth $9,355, according to data from metrics site CoinMarketCap.

Peaks and troughs have been minor, too. In the past month, Bitcoins peak price has been $9,680; its lowest price has been $8,975. According to a new report by crypto data firm Coin Metrics, published today, Bitcoins price has changed just 1% in the past month.

Per Skew Analytics, this is Bitcoins quietest stretch since November 2018. That was the calm before the storm; in the months after, Bitcoins volatility spikedand in the wrong direction that hodlers hoped, with Bitcoin's price crashing by nearly 50%.

At least there was action.

Compare current volatility to the rest of 2020 and Bitcoins past two months seem positively dull.

In mid-March, Bitcoin fell by around 40% in a matter of days after global markets tumbled amid pandemic-fueled uncertainty.

Bitcoin quickly recovered and has been on a steady upward trend ever since its crashminus a couple of blips. Since May, it has dithered between $9,000 and $10,000.

Amid a global pandemic, its stability is remarkable.

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of crypto exchange Binance, expressed the sentiment to Bloomberg in an interview yesterday. For the last little while, Bitcoin has been really stable, he said. People have been calling [Bitcoin] a stablecoin now, Zhao joked (we think).

For some, Bitcoins stability is no relief; its a frustration. Bitcoin has yet to truly break through the illustrious $10,000 price point. Thats the price point that Bitcoin had been at just before the coronavirus crash.

Zhao told Bloomberg that, potentially following massive money-printing efforts by governments, sooner or later its going to break out.

Though Bitcoins stability is bad news for speculators, Nic Carter, a partner of crypto VC fund Castle Island Ventures, thinks that it could help the coin find its place in commerce.

Imagining what Bitcoins creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, would say from a beach in Bali if Bitcoin remained at its current price for the next 10 years, Carter tweeted: Nice! Just as I intended. Now just use it for commerce on the internet."

"Thats what its for. Haha what? You expected it to go up forever? You know thats impossible, right? Carter joked (we think).

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

See the original post:

Bitcoins price hasnt been this stable since 2018. Who's worried? - Decrypt

Whale Alert has recently published the report in which it states that Satoshi Nakamoto, a mysterious founder of Bitcoin (BTC) also known as Patoshi, is supposed to mine 1,125,150 BTC what worth around $10.9 billion.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin has mined $10.9 billion judging from recent reports by the analytics firm Whale Alert a few days ago.Satoshi Nakamoto, who also uses his alias, Patoshi was found to have protected the Bitcoin network in its infancy through his mining operations. Even though these facts were not obvious in the beginning, they are starting to emerge, according to the recent report.

The name Patoshi was linked to the inventor by the analyst Sergio Demian Lerner. He discovered that the two identities belonged to the same person after using the mining pattern of the rig which showed a definite signature. This particular pattern is evident at the beginning of the network, and also in the mining blocks. Satoshi sent the gained coins to Hal Finney, who was the first person to receive BTC from the network. So by connecting the dots, the analysts at Whale Alert deducted the coins that were mined by Satoshi.

Another finding from Whale Alert is that Patoshi adjusted his mining speed between blocks. This was to maintain the average time of ten minutes which is the standard Bitcoin transmission period for block confirmation. It became obvious that the purpose of the execution was to guard the network from 51% attack. This is a malicious takeover of the network by bad actors, an event that would have been feasible at the early stages of the Bitcoin existence. Patoshi made sure he maintained 60% of all processing power while he left enough blocks for other miners as well.

The report showed that as more miners joined the network giving it better security, the founder decided that it was strong enough to withstand the attack. Therefore, sometime in 2010, Satoshi ceased his mining operations.

At a point, it was difficult to track Patoshis blocks and to understand the link between Patoshi and Satoshi. Analysts had also wondered if he continued to mine with another rig after 2010. These speculations have been laid to rest by the recent report. Whale Alert reported that the node used to mine Patoshis block had been turned off around May 2010. So in total, 907 BTC was expended from the Bitcoins mined on it, which left 1,122,693 BTC unspent.

Satoshi was active in BitcoinTalk forum till December 12, 2010. His last verified communication was an email to Gavin Andersen.

Chuks is a blockchain enthusiast and finance researcher that has covered the crypto sphere for several years. He believes that the evolving technology would change how we do business.

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

See more here:

Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto Mined $10.9 Billion Worth ...

Source: Adobe/Dmitry

Bitcoins (BTC) pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto may have mined more than 1 million bitcoin in the early days of the cryptocurrency, according to analysts at crypto transaction tracker Whale Alert.

The early Bitcoin miner known as Patoshi mined BT 1,125,150 during BTCs infancy, when Patoshi controlled a constant 60% of the networks processing power, presumably in order to ensure no other miners would be able to carry out a 51% attack on the new and vulnerable network, analysts said in a blog post.

The new report, which builds upon work from 2013 by crypto researcher Sergio Demian Lerner, further said that it is known for certain that the miner dubbed Patoshi was indeed Satoshi. The reason for this, it said, is that the distinct saw pattern that characterizes Patoshi appeared at the birth of the network, and it mined the block that contained the bitcoins that were sent to Hal Finney the first-ever recipient of a bitcoin transaction sent from Satoshi.

The fact that Satoshis mining power was kept at a constant 60% of the entire network, combined with among other things the lack of spending, also suggests that Satoshi was only interested in growing and protecting the young network, according to Whale Alert.

In addition to eliminating the risk of a 51% attack by controlling 60% of the network, this practice also helped Satoshi to maintain his ideal block time of around 10 minutes, in particular during periods when there was either too much or not enough activity on the network, the report said.

Given this information, Whale Alert was able to determine that an estimated 22,503 blocks out of the first 54,316 blocks mined, were indeed mined by Bitcoins creator. Further, the team also concluded that at least 18 of the spent blocks were Satoshis, which means that the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator in total spent BTC 907, with a price of less than USD 0.01 per coin at the time. This also means that BTC 1,122,693 were left unspent by Satoshi, Whale Alert wrote.

They concluded that the manner in which the early mining by Satoshi was carried out suggests that the bitcoins mined were possibly a mere byproduct of his efforts to keep the network safe and stable. This makes it unlikely that the remaining 1.12 million BTC will ever be spent, the article said, although it also added that the question remains why Satoshi didnt simply burn them in this case.

However, the practice of using nonce (the number that Bitcoin miners are solving for) patterns to determine the amount of bitcoin Satoshi mined has previously been called into question by BitMEX Research. According to a 2018 blog post, there is reasonable evidence to support the claim that a dominant miner in 2009 mined around 700,000 BTC. Whether that miner was Satoshi, however, is certainly not conclusive.____Learn more: Someone Just Moved 50 Bitcoins, Prompting Speculations It's Satoshi NakamotoSatoshi-era Bitcoin Miner Calls Craig Wright a Fraud Using "His" BTC Addresses

Read more:

Satoshi Nakamoto Mined More Than 1 Million Bitcoin - Report

Whale Alert, an expert in interesting blockchain transactions, provides the most accurate estimate of the bitcoins owned by Satoshi Nakamoto.

Whale Alert, an expert in interesting blockchain transactions, provides the most accurate estimate of the bitcoins owned by Satoshi Nakamoto.

Extensive analysis focused on the recognition of mining activity through extranonce values.

In the image above, you can see the extranonce values at a block heights below 20,000, each block creating a saw like pattern. The analyst assigned almost vertical lines to Satoshi, because his pattern appeared as soon as the network was fully created, and the bitcoins were sent to Hal Finney.

Whale Alert also found other evidence, specifically:

the last byte of the nonce was always within the ranges of 0 to 9 or 19 to 58 whereas all other miners used the full range of 0 to 255.

This discovery made it easier to attribute blocks to Patoshi by removing the ones with nonces outside of the range.

Other interesting findings include the revelation of the average speed of Satoshis mining, which was constant throughout. According to the information obtained, Satoshi adjusted the speed between the blocks to maintain a certain average.

for the entire range of blocks between height 2,000 and 16,000 the average number of blocks mined by Patoshi per hour was almost exactly .6 per 10 minutes,

According to Whale Alert, there can be two reasons for this:

We suspect that Patoshi was comprised of at least 48 computers, with one machine for coordination and more on standby in case of an attack, which would explain the missing range of [1018].

As soon as Satoshi deemed the network strong enough he reduced Patoshis blocks per 10 min target to give others a better chance at mining a block.

Although the research is extensive and precise, even the creator himself cannot confirm with certainty that Satoshi stopped mining after block 54,316, and therefore we only have to argue about whether we have at least partially approached reality.

Read also: The discovered e-mail from 1999 was probably written by Satoshi Nakamoto

Follow our social media and get news on time

869 Views

LikeLoveHahaWowSadAngry

4

Go here to read the rest:

Satoshi Nakamoto owns a Bitcoin worth $ 10.9 billion ...

The hourly data from Google Trends shows that US-based searches for Bitcoin have consistently peaked around 1 AM Eastern time for the past week. This hourly data is only available seven days into the past, so we dont know if this is an established pattern or a new development.

The latest Google Trends data for Bitcoin searches. Source: Google Trends.

Out of 50 states, California is the most search-happy at this hour, possibly because 1 AM Eastern represents just 10 PM local time on the west coast. Plenty of reasonable browsing time left in the evening.

Google Trends data for Bitcoin searches. Source: Google Trends.

Its also not surprising that the peak search interest in Bitcoin over the past 30 days coincided with this weeks notorious Twitter hack. As Satoshi Nakamoto once noticed under similar circumstances, it would have been nice to get this attention in any other context.

Meanwhile, it is still not too late for some of the victims to get their Bitcoin back.

Original post:

Americans Are Googling Bitcoin in the Middle of the Night - Cointelegraph

The most popular cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, are likely to hit their record combined value of $1.3 billion, saysRyan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_). According to Messari's expert, Blockchains have all the chances to become payment systems.

In the image that is attached to Ryan Watkins Twitter post, he added the current value of Bitcoin, Ethereum as well as the value of stablecoins made on those most popular Blockchains.

Bitcoins Background

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency ever created by an anonymous developer, Satoshi Nakamoto. This Blockchain has a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism which means that calculations are needed to create a new block. New Bitcoins appear once a miner (special hardware) adds a new block to the system.

Bitcoins price has reached its top at the end of 2017 (the currency pair BTC/USD has reached level of $20,000), but retreated later. Bitcoin is supposed to be the most reliable payment system among all existing cryptocurrencies. However, the God Father of all tokens lacks functionality when compared to its closest rival, Ethereum.

Etehreums Background

Ethereum is the second popular Blockchain with great functionality. It also uses the PoW consensus mechanism. However, the founders of the project are testing another generation of this network, which is going to save energy by using the Proof-of-State mechanism (blocks will be added and verified by the stakeholders).

Apart from the payment system, Ethereum has another great feature. It offers so-called 'smart contracts' that may substitute paper contracts in the future. This feature makes the Ethereum very popular among users. Ethereums price was above $1,400 but later ETH/USD had a significant fall towards $100 per coin.

Follow this link:

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) Accumulated Value to Reach $1.3 billion, an Expert Says... - TheTradable

Crypto firms are cooking up ways to become Travel Rule compliant, Satoshis stash got a little bigger and one of Ethereum Classics top supporters is walking away from the project.

Youre readingBlockchain Bites, the daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news, and why theyre significant. You can subscribe to this and all of CoinDesksnewsletters here.

Travel RuleBitGo, Coinbase and other top exchanges are expected to release a white paper next month detailing a type of bulletin board meant tohelp exchanges comply with the Financial Action Task Forces (FATF) Travel Rule.Participants would share addresses on the board and, if another member claims an address, the two entities could then share data P2P to keep personal information out of the reach of hackers. Gemini, Kraken, and Bittrex may also be participating in the Travel Rule working group, according toThe Block.Separately, blockchain security firmCoolBitX and on-chain analytics company Ellipticare working together on another Travel Rule solution.

Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Shows Signs of Life but Ether (and Crew) Steal the Limelight

Satoshis BillionsWhale Alert found on-chain evidence that Bitcoins creatormined approximately 1,125,150 BTC(~$10.9 billion) as the network was getting off the ground. This is up from the 1 million BTC Sergio Demian Lerner initially attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto in 2013, by examining the extra nonce patterns thought to be caused by Nakamotos mining rig. In a Medium post, researchers describe how Satoshi continued mining with the same rig until at least May 2010, capturing 22,503 of the first 54,316 block rewards.

FYIYFI, the governance token for Yearn.Finance, isthe latest DeFi project to capture the attention of yield farmers.The tokens creator Andre Cronje hasnt set aside any of the tokens for himself and called it a completely valueless 0 supply token, in a Medium post. That all tokens are set aside for liquidity providers may have influenced a price run up to $2,374, though the projects name (an unflattering acronym) and what appears to be a backdoor that could allow Cronje to print an infinite amount of YFI, have raised eyebrows. As of 13:00 UTC today, the price has collapsed to $821.07.

Story continues

Hard Fork AwayOne of Ethereum Classics largest power providers hasvoted to abandon the projectafter an upcoming hard fork. OpenEthereum is the latest client to walk, citing concerns with the blockchains immutability, according to a GitHub vote Thursday. Of the 615 current Ethereum Classic nodes listed by ETC Nodes, 425 wont update in the future as developers make changes via hard forks. OpenEthereum has chosen to shut down support for the original Ethereum mainnet to conserve developer energy for its Ethereum client, formerly known as Parity-Ethereum.

Real-Time AlertsCipherTrace, a blockchain analytics software firm, has deployed a predictive risk-scoring system that the company says providesreal-time alerts on suspect crypto transactionsfor its exchange, investor and investigator clients. The tool will assign risk based on the on-chain histories of transacted funds, the Silicon Valley firm said. Inbound cryptos with unseemly ties (from sanctioned countries or a fraud campaign, for example) would get a high risk score under the system.

Argentine telecom hackers opted formonero

Samsung addedDecentraland supporton its mobile wallet app

XRP investor Will Meade claimed he worked at Goldman Sachs. Goldman says theres no record of his employment (Decrypt)

DeFi got a robo-advisor (The Block)

Dr. Seuss comes to the blockchain thanks to the maker of Cryptokitties (TechCrunch)

Related: Blockchain Bites: PayPal, Mastercard Inch Closer to Crypto

Chinas Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) took agreat leap forwardby integrating with six public blockchains. Beginning Aug 10, Tezos, NEO, Nervos, EOS, IRISnet and Ethereum developers will be able to build dapps and run nodes drawing on bandwidth from BSNs data centers.

The BSN is a toolbox for open source developers to build blockchain applications. Sometimes called the digital belt and road initiative, the BSN is an oxymoronic experiment in nation state-led decentralized tech development.

This is part of Chinas plan to be the one and only infrastructure provider for blockchain firms around the world, CoinDesks David Pan reports. Evidence of President Xi Jinpings commitment toseizethe blockchain opportunity, the BSN revealslingering contradictionsin Chinas approach to open source crypto projects.

The Chinese government and regulators are very cautious about decentralized public chains and try not to get involved in anything related to a public blockchain, Hongfei Da, founder of NEO, said. It is interesting to see BSN, which has a clear commercial purpose and is backed by entities with government background, is supporting such projects.

Correlation Data PointBitcoin jumped from $9,190 to $9,360 in early morning trading, according to CoinDesksBitcoin Price Index,afterEuropean Union leaders announced a 750 billion post-pandemic fiscal stimulus plan.This is another data point showing correlation between Bitcoin and traditional equities, as some major European equity indices are up at least 1.5% each, while Germanys DAX index has nearly erased losses incurred during the coronavirus-led market tumble.

ETHs Real Value?Ethers total market capitalization stands at about $26 billion, if youre not taking into accountall of the digital assets built atop the Ethereumblockchain. The combined value of ERC-20-standard tokens which include stablecoins like tether, altcoins like Chainlinks LINK and DeFi darlings like Kybers KNC is around $26 billion, according to the data provider Messari. Including all these assets, the Ethereum ecosystems market cap is around $50 billion closer to bitcoins $170 billion than if ether were considered alone. The comparison shows how the rapid pace of development this year on Ethereum has brought the blockchains ecosystem closer to challenging Bitcoin. The value gap narrowed over the past month as bitcoins price stagnated, while demand for stablecoins and a flurry of activity in DeFi has ignited the value of Ethereum and the tokens that depend on it, CoinDesks First Mover reports. You can get the full analysis in your inbox bysubscribing here.

Five yearsFive years ago, an unlikely project went live. It called itself the world computer and it promised to transform not just cryptocurrencies as we knew it, but the very idea of what could be done with cryptography and consensus. Ethereum had arrived.

From its technical aspirations to unicorns and memes, Ethereum is a culture on its own. It has spawned blockchain uses from digital cats to yield farming previously unimagined.

Ethereum is at a crossroads. But it must complete an ambitious and fraught retooling of its foundations the long awaited move to Ethereum 2.0 to keep up with the markets demands.

CoinDesk is marking the milestone with Ethereum at Five: a cross-platform series comprising a series of special coverage, a pop-up newsletter and live-streamed discussions. New issues and sessions launch daily from July 27-31.Register for CoinDesk Live and our pop-up newsletter.

Surprise Attack?Brenna Smith, an open source researcher and contributor for the investigative website Bellingcat, thinks no one should be surprised that Twitter was hacked last week,least of all Twitter.For years, celebrity impersonations and crypto scams have run rampant on the platform, without any meaningful redress. Essentially since Bitcoins inception, cyber criminals and scammers have capitalized on the currency to funnel proceeds from emails scams, fake websites, and propositions on chat forums. Then, they began leveraging major social media platforms and impersonating celebrities. Mainstream social media platforms and celebrities provide two critical ingredients to a lucrative hack: a large audience and a semblance of credibility, she writes.

Singularity or BustThe latest episode of The Breakdown looks at GPT-3, the latest artificial intelligence tool to have youquestioning the veracity of what you see online.NWL gives an overview of the new language tool and asks whether we should be terrified.

See the article here:

Blockchain Bites: Chinas BSN Integrations and Satoshis Newfound Wealth - Yahoo Finance