Blockchain Analysis Says Extremely Unlikely That Satoshi Moved His Bitcoin on May 20

An analysis of Bitcoin’s blockchain suggests that it is highly unlikely that the early miner who moved 40 BTC on Wednesday was Bitcoin’s mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto. 

According to an update by Twitter bot “Whale Alert”, 40 BTC was transferred on May 20 from a wallet that has been dormant since 2009, leading to speculation that the funds belonged to Satoshi Nakamoto.

The transacted coins were originally mined on February 9, 2009, shortly after the creation of Bitcoin’s genesis block the month before. 

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

ℹ️ The coins in this transaction were mined in the first month of Bitcoin’s existence.

Tx: https://t.co/hxDJGGtfF0

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 20, 2020

However, analysis of bitcoin’s blockchain has revealed the transacted coins moat likely did not belong to Satoshi.

Castle Island Ventures partner and Coin Metrics Co-Founder Nic Carter took to Twitter to explain his analysis:

keep in mind it’s basically impossible to prove that Satoshi _didn’t_ mine these coins, but the best research we have suggests that Satoshi mined a specific set of blocks, of which this is not one. https://t.co/oNRwcNcWa2

— nic carter (@nic__carter) May 20, 2020

Here’s a visualization of the Patoshi pattern with the block that was just spent. The blocks believed to be Satoshi have a specific pattern in the nonce, which this block does not have pic.twitter.com/E86eEs6MZf

— nic carter (@nic__carter) May 20, 2020

And here is Carter explaining what he means by Patoshi Blocks:

They’re blocks that researchers believe were mined by a single big early miner with >1m BTC, which many believe is Satoshi https://t.co/oOVgl4APy9

— nic carter (@nic__carter) May 20, 2020

He also pointed out:

keep in mind it’s basically impossible to prove that Satoshi _didn’t_ mine these coins, but the best research we have suggests that Satoshi mined a specific set of blocks, of which this is not one. https://t.co/oNRwcNcWa2

— nic carter (@nic__carter) May 20, 2020

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