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Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Now a Member of the Top 20 World’s Richest People

12/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

This week our newsdesk covered the world’s wealthiest cryptocurrency billionaires after the American business magazine Forbes published the 2021 list of billionaires. Now it was mentioned in our report that Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t make the cut, even though Bitcoin’s inventor is one of the wealthiest people in the world. Using today’s bitcoin exchange rates, data shows that if Nakamoto has 1 million bitcoin, then the infamous creator has made it into the top twenty, as far as the world’s wealthiest billionaires are concerned.

Bitcoin’s Creator Is a Member of the 1%

The mysterious creator behind the Bitcoin project is unknown and there is very little information out there concerning the identity of the blockchain inventor or group of inventors.

However, there is some information that the community is aware of, and it is well known that Satoshi Nakamoto helped kickstart the network and was with the community up until 2010. It is estimated that Nakamoto holds at least 750,000 to 1.1 million bitcoin (BTC) from when the creator mined tokens back in the early days.

It is also understood that Nakamoto has never spent these coinbase rewards gathered during the first year Bitcoin launched. Now leveraging current bitcoin (BTC) exchange rates shows that Satoshi Nakamoto is a very rich person today, as the inventor possesses over $59 billion in wealth.

This is of course if Satoshi Nakamoto has access to the 1 million BTC estimate and the $59 billion+ doesn’t include the forks he owns too. Nakamoto’s bitcoin cash (BCH) stash is worth over $650 million and the bitcoinsv (BSV) cache the inventor owns is worth over $250 million. Satoshi Nakamoto also has access to 1.1 million bitcoin gold (BTG), and all the other forks that exist if the inventor still has the private keys.

With just the BTC stash alone, this puts Satoshi Nakamoto in the top 20 positions, according to the “Forbes Billionaires 2021” list. Nakamoto is positioned just above the financial media mogul Michael Bloomberg (20) and Rob Walton (20) the oldest living son of the Walmart founder Sam Walton.

Nakamoto Climbed From the World’s 159th Richest Person to the 19th in Just 5 Months

Bitcoin’s inventor would be in the 19th position using today’s BTC exchange rates and with the corresponding exchange rates of forks like BCH, BSV, and BTG, it would still make him a hair below Jim Walton another son of Sam Walton.

Now our newsdesk covered the fact that Satoshi Nakamoto is slowly moving toward Jeff Bezo’s number one position and what the price of BTC needs to be to get there. With close to $60 billion in assets, Nakamoto is not yet a centibillionaire and BTC still has a ways to go for the inventor to even come close to Bezos and Musk.

It’s not out of the question to believe that Satoshi Nakamoto can make it to Bezo’s position, as Bitcoin’s inventor held the 157th richest person worldwide position back in October 2020. Being a member of the top 20 wealthiest billionaires is no small task and the mysterious and unknown creator of Bitcoin has accomplished this feat.

What do you think about Satoshi Nakamoto making it into the world’s richest in the top 20 positions? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

14 Years of Art for $500K: Youtuber Ali Spagnola Compiles All Her Free Paintings Into an NFT

12/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

14 Years of Free Art for $500K: Youtuber Ali Spagnola Compiles All Her Free Paintings Into an NFT

In mid-January, Bitcoin.com’s newsdesk wrote about the popular artist and Youtuber, Alicia Dawn “Ali” Spagnola after she “accidentally got bitcoin rich” from her Free Paintings project. Since then, a great number of people told her to create a non-fungible token (NFT) asset with her artwork, so she decided to execute the idea after many requests. Spagnola chose to mint an NFT that stems from a combination of the 2,809 free paintings she’s created during the last 14 years.

A $500K NFT After Giving Away Free Paintings for 14 Years

In her recent video on Youtube, Ali Spagnola is hoping to entice elite NFT collectors (Beeple buyers) with all of the hard work she spent on her “Free Paintings” project. Spagnola is a popular musician and artist with 345,000 Youtube subscribers, a large following on Tiktok, 2.4 million followers on Twitter.

While focusing on her content creation and career, Spagnola started a project 14 years ago where she’s been giving away free paintings by request. To date, she’s distributed 2,809 free paintings to people all around the world. Now while she does them for free, she also allows donations, and one year she got a whole bitcoin for one of her paintings, which depicted a colorful image of the leading crypto asset.

Spagnola forgot all about that donation and realized years later that it was worth tens of thousands, and a whole lot more than the original $50 value. She decided to make a video about her bitcoin discovery and she even went to meet the person who gave her a bitcoin (BTC) and she also gave him a much larger painting of a bitcoin.

14 Years of Art for $500K: Youtuber Ali Spagnola Compiles All Her Free Paintings Into an NFT — The Youtuber and artist Ali Spagnola discusses her idea to mint a non-fungible token collectible from her 2,809 Free Paintings project.

Spagnola’s bitcoin story went viral as her popularity got a huge boost from the crypto community, and a myriad of proponents recommended that she should mint a non-fungible token (NFT) asset. The Youtuber then published another video on April 9, 2021, called “I Sold a $500,000 NFT after Giving Free Art for 14 Years,” which explains how she recently decided to mint an NFT and auction it on the Opensea.io marketplace.

“When The story about my Bitcoin painting started getting shared, tons of people responded saying I should mint NFTs,” Spagnola told Bitcoin.com on Sunday afternoon. “I had zero idea what that meant at the time but it was so many people that I knew I had to look into it.”

Now Spagnola hasn’t actually sold the NFT for $500k yet, and the Opensea auction still has around 19 days left in the auction. At the time of publication, Spagnola’s Free Paintings NFT currently has a bid for 2.625 ETH worth $5,722 leveraging today’s ether exchange rates. Spagnola’s latest video tells the story of why she decided to mint an NFT. She explains that she’s always said in jest that “after selflessly mailing my art to people for years across the world” and “as soon as enough people cared, I would be a famous artist and all that art I gave away would transform from ‘worthless’ to really valuable.”

The Artist Plans to End Her Free Paintings Project

Moreover, Spagnola says that this NFT sale will be a culmination of all the art she’s created for more than a decade. And as a person fascinated with layers, the word “culmination” also has another meaning to her story. That’s because Spagnola says she’s decided to stop the Free Paintings project after selling her latest NFT. The artist also said she plans to donate a portion of the proceeds from the Opensea auction to the National Guild for Community Arts Education.

After Spagnola’s video was published, Bitcoin.com’s newsdesk spoke with the artist this past weekend about her latest NFT venture, and her possible retirement from the Free Paintings project. Spagnola explained what she plans to do if the auction succeeds or fails.

“I think I should follow up if it succeeds or fails… If I don’t hit the mark, I’ll let it go to the highest bidder,” Spagnola said. “I’d even be fine with a penny being the highest bid because at least that’s still a good story haha… my worthless art truly is pretty worthless. Although that’s not saying the penny bidder couldn’t turn around and sell it for $500,000 down the road. I’m down for whatever story unfolds.”

The Youtuber also said that the cryptocurrency and NFT community have been exceptionally welcoming. “For example, I got invited on The Bitcoin Podcast and I told them, ‘Are you sure you wanna chat with me? I’m no expert so I don’t have much to offer.’ But they were all about having conversations with people outside the community. They answered a bunch of my questions and wanted to help make everything more accessible.”

Spagnola added:

It seems that way with most of the community. They’re passionate about the technology and the future and are excited to get other people excited about it.

At the end of our conversation, we discussed her departure from the Free Paintings project. “I do plan on stopping the project if the NFT doesn’t reach the goal,” Spagnola shared. “I had it in my head that, as I mentioned earlier, it might sell for a penny and that would kind of be a sign that what I was doing really was worthless, because no one cared enough to help add value to the idea and be a part of the art whether it was through sharing the story or collectors actually bidding.”

The artist concluded:

I’m kind of torn now because I’m not at my goal but the outpouring of support for the idea and the project has been so wonderful. It does feel really nice to have the past 14 years of my art giving appreciated. Even the fact that you want to interview me about it supports the idea that the whole thing, both the project and the NFT, has value. This article is a part of the art now haha…

Spagnola added that she hopes it helps her connect with an awesome NFT collector that understands the piece and wants to be a part of the story as well. Check out Ali Spagnola’s latest video below where she talks about minting and auctioning her 2,809 Free Paintings NFT collage on Opensea.

What do you think about Ali Spagnola’s NFT auction? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

World’s Wealthiest Annual Ranking Now Lists 12 Crypto Billionaires

12/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

The American business magazine Forbes recently published the company’s 2021 documentation of the wealthiest billionaires in the world. According to the list published annually every March, there are now 12 billionaires that work directly within the cryptocurrency industry and the list of crypto billionaires is 3x larger than last year.

Today’s Crypto Billionaires List

Since March 1987, Forbes has been publishing a list of the world’s wealthiest billionaires compiled in a list for the public to view. Back then the Japanese businessman and real-estate mogul Yoshiaki Tsutsumi was the richest person in 1987 with an estimated wealth of around $20 billion. Since then, and every year after, Forbes has deployed around 50 journalists to find and track the globe’s richest people. In 2021, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man in the world with an estimated $177 billion. Bezos was the first human on earth to be listed on Forbes as a centibillionaire.

Bezos is followed by the dogecoin (DOGE) fan and Tesla CEO Elon Musk with 151 billion. Then there is Bernard Arnault and his family who own companies like Sephora and Louis Vuitton and they hold around $150 billion in net worth. Those three are followed by Microsoft’s Bill Gates ($124B) and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ($97B). In 2021, Forbe’s list of global billionaires now includes 12 crypto billionaires who are directly associated with the digital currency industry. Elon Musk could be considered a crypto billionaire, but most would say he’s more of a proponent than someone infused within the blockchain industry.

Another person not mentioned among 2021’s crypto billionaires is Satoshi Nakamoto. Using today’s exchange rates, Nakamoto could be worth more than $59 billion. The 12 crypto billionaires noted in this year’s list work with digital currency exchanges or are venture capitalists who invest heavily in crypto startups. Forbes notes that the FTX Exchange CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried is the wealthiest crypto billionaire with $8.7 billion today. The CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, is the second wealthiest with around $6.5 billion. The next two people are the Winklevoss Twins, founders of the Gemini Exchange with a collective net worth of around $6 billion.

A Few Changes This Year Could Increase the 2022 Crypto Billionaires List

The cofounder of Ripple Labs Chris Larsen holds the fourth position with $3.5 billion in wealth. The CEO of Microstrategy Michael Saylor is noted in the list for having $2.3 billion. Another Ripple cofounder is also mentioned on Forbes’ 2021 billionaire list as Jed McCaleb is estimated to have around $2 billion. The cofounder of Coinbase Fred Ersham has around $1.9 billion and ChangPeng Zhao (CZ) from Binance holds the exact same amount as Ersham.

The last three people on the list include Digital Currency Group’s Barry Silbert ($1.6B), Bloq’s Matthew Roszak ($1.5B), and the well known venture capitalist Tim Draper. Alongside this, there may even be a number of crypto people that are not mentioned on the Forbes billionaire list.

Just recently, in an interview with Angie Lau from Forkast News, Roger Ver touched upon not making the list and said that it might not be accurate. Moreover, Ver explained that when a few companies he’s invested in go public, he plans to have “several billion dollars worth of capital” and $2 billion will be dedicated to the Bitcoin Cash network and spreading adoption.

It will be interesting to see how things look in the 2022 list written and published by the American business magazine especially for the number of crypto people listed. By then the size of the crypto economy may be much larger, a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) could get approved, and companies like Coinbase going public may happen a lot more often. All three of these factors will produce a lot more crypto billionaires next year if they come to fruition.

What do you think about the 2021 crypto billionaires listed this year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

British auction house Christie’s Plans to Sell 9 Rare Cryptopunk NFTs Next Month

10/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

Next month in New York, the popular auction house Christie’s plans to auction a rare lot of Cryptopunk non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles. The sample of work sold will be approximately nine rare Punks, courtesy of the project’s creators Larva Labs.

Nine Rare Cryptopunks Going to Auction

On May 13, 2021, the British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie plans to auction nine one-of-a-kind NFTs from the Cryptopunk project. Christie’s said it will be the first of a kind occasion of “groundbreaking work offered at a traditional auction house.” The single lot of nine Punks stems from the NFTs creators Larva Labs.

“The Cryptopunks are the alpha and omega of the [cypto art] movement,” Noah Davis, a specialist in Post-War & Contemporary Art at Christie’s, New York said during the announcement. “This is a historic sale,” Davis added.

Several Worlds Into a Single Project- Cryptopunks Inspired the NFT Space

The Cryptopunks project came from the minds of Matt Hall and John Watkinson back in 2017. The New York-based firm they started, Larva Labs, has since created thousands of NFT characters. The team launched Cryptopunks on June 23, 2017, and they consist of pixelated 8-bit 24×24 pictures of Punks. There are approximately 10,000 Punks today and some have already sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Christie’s auction house says it will be auctioning Punk # 2, 30, 58, 532, 602, 603, 635, and 757. Additionally, a “rare alien” collectible will be sold during the May 13 auction as well. Cryptopunk 635, is one of only nine alien Punks and the only one with a sub-1,000 series number. Christie’s says that Punks 532 and 602 are inspired by the ’70s London punk scene.

“Cryptopunks inspired a community of collectors and connoisseurs,” Christie’s announcement details. “For fans of collectibles, it’s clearly a version of trading cards or something similar. However, generative art fans see it as an interesting example in that category. We like that its perception is flexible and brings together several of these worlds into a single project,” the auction house announcement adds.

What do you think about the nine Cryptopunks being sold at the British auction house Christie’s next month? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Fidelity Says Bitcoin Adoption Will Keep Accelerating — ‘We’ve Reached a Tipping Point’

09/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

Fidelity’s head of digital assets says that bitcoin adoption will continue “at an accelerated pace,” noting that “we’ve reached a tipping point.” He explained that investors are increasingly drawn to bitcoin “Particularly, in an environment where we’ve seen unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus from central banks and governments in response to the pandemic.”

The Tipping Point of Bitcoin Adoption

Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets at Fidelity Investments, talked about bitcoin adoption Wednesday during an interview at Marketwatch and Barron’s “Investing in Crypto” event. Jessop is also head of Corporate Business Development for Fidelity Investments.

The Fidelity executive says that the maturation and adoption of bitcoin as an investment class “will continue at a rapid pace in the coming years,” Marketwatch detailed, adding that this suggests that cryptocurrency may have turned a corner in traditional finance circles.

He was quoted as saying:

I think we continue to see adoption at an accelerated pace for a host of reasons.

The head of digital assets at Fidelity has previously talked about the bitcoin market becoming more mature. “There’s more liquidity. Volatility is down about 50% from where it was in 2017. So … we believe, that the composition of this investor base, what’s driving the market higher today, is fundamentally different than what we saw three years ago,” he said in January.

Jessop further explained Wednesday why investors are increasingly drawn to bitcoin, citing factors such as the ultralow interest rates and an environment stimulated by easy-money policies.

“I think you’ve had the accumulated experience of now roughly 12 years of the bitcoin blockchain being operative since the genesis block in early 2009. And the pandemic, quite frankly, was a catalyst for institutional adoption, and specifically bitcoin and the narrative, or use-case, around digital gold,” Jessop described.

The Fidelity executive elaborated, “Particularly, in an environment where we’ve seen unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus from central banks and governments in response to the pandemic,” adding:

I think we’ve reached a tipping point … We’re not going to get out of this stimulated environment anytime soon.

Jessop is not the only finance executive who believes that bitcoin has reached a tipping point. Bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, said last month that “Bitcoin adoption has hit a tipping point and investors don’t want to sit on the sidelines.” His comment followed the approval of some bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Canada. Meanwhile, investment bank Goldman Sachs also sees the bitcoin market becoming more mature.

Do you agree with Tom Jessop about the tipping point of bitcoin adoption? Let us know in the comments section below.