Mike Hearn

The Many Facts That Indicate Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Won’t Ever Come Back

27/10/2021 by Idelto Editor

On January 3, 2022, the Bitcoin network will be celebrating its 13th year of life after its creator Satoshi Nakamoto kick-started the protocol. The creator of Bitcoin has always been the community’s most famous and mysterious character. Roughly ten years ago, Satoshi logged off, never to return and it’s very likely the inventor won’t ever come back.

Communication Breakdown

Satoshi Nakamoto invented the Bitcoin network and released the technology’s white paper on Halloween (October 31) 2008. The paper was authored by “Satoshi Nakamoto” using the email “[email protected]” and the creator also attached the web domain name “bitcoin.org” to the paper.

The name “Satoshi Nakamoto” is of Japanese descent and it’s widely considered a pseudonym or a falsified name. It is assumed that Nakamoto’s birthday is April 5, 1975, as the date is displayed on the inventor’s P2P Foundation profile. If the birth date is correct, Nakamoto would be 46 years old today.

Over the years a great number of sleuths have made it their mission to discover the inventor’s identity. Although, Satoshi Nakamoto is likely deceased and there are many reasons why people would believe Bitcoin’s inventor is no longer with us. In the past, Bitcoin.com News has published many articles about the possible suspects that people have claimed are Satoshi, and the many that claim to be the famous inventor, as well.

The first thing we know, however, is that Satoshi Nakamoto left two messages before leaving for good. The first was on December 12, 2010, when the creator left the community a message about “venturing into more complex ideas.” The post on December 12 was Satoshi discussing things in a very serious and direct way, stressing that the “software is not at all resistant to DoS attack.”

Nakamoto never returned to discuss anything else on the Bitcointalk.org forum ever again. Years later, emails from Nakamoto to Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen surfaced from April 2011, when Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator said “I’ve moved on to other things.” From here, most everything else about Satoshi’s further communications has been unproven and there have been a lot of wild claims and speculation that still exist to this day.

Bitcoin Riches Remain Unclaimed

The fact is though, after these messages Satoshi Nakamoto decided not to come back and it’s very possible that the inventor could not return due to health reasons. In fact, some people are quite certain that Hal Finney was the most likely Satoshi Nakamoto candidate. Finney had severe issues with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and passed away in August, 2014. Interestingly, Finney also retired from the PGP Corporation in 2011, the same year Nakamoto sent his final correspondence emails to Hearn and Andresen.

Lastly, one of the biggest clues Nakamoto is no longer with us — besides the complete lack of communication after ten years — is the fact that the inventor’s riches remain unspent to this day. It is widely assumed that Nakamoto owns a hoard of 1 million bitcoin (BTC) if the creator is still alive. But the stash of more than $60 billion worth of BTC has never seen the light of day, and there’s a good chance these coins are gone forever if Satoshi Nakamoto is deceased.

However, at the end of the day, there are not enough facts that can prove Satoshi is dead, just as there are not enough facts that can prove Satoshi is alive. Zero communications over the years don’t necessarily mean Nakamoto is no longer with us on this earth. Moreover, the fact that Satoshi has never moved or spent the $60 billion worth of bitcoin mined in the early days doesn’t necessarily mean Nakamoto is dead either. One thing is certain, Nakamoto’s shroud of mystery was good enough to make sure we are not.

What do you think about the possibility that Satoshi Nakamoto is dead? Or do you think Bitcoin’s inventor is alive and well? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Gavin Andresen Publishes Theory of Possible Crypto Future: Whales Shut Down the BTC Network in the Year 2100

24/09/2021 by Idelto Editor

On September 21, former Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen published an interesting blog post about “a possible [Bitcoin] future.” The blog post details a theoretical situation for the Bitcoin network in 2061, where most [bitcoin] transactions don’t happen on the [Bitcoin] network.

A Theoretical Look at $6 Million Dollars per Bitcoin and the Year 2061

Following Satoshi Nakamoto’s departure from Bitcoin in 2010, for a few years, Gavin Andresen was considered the software’s lead maintainer after Nakamoto left him the keys. In 2011, Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn also claims he received an email from Satoshi which said that the blockchain inventor “moved on to other things” but also added, “It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.” However, Andresen is not the lead maintainer anymore, and has not been an active Bitcoin Core developer in years.

Censored on Reddit r/bitcoin (I think, but maybe I’m just not looking in the right place)

— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) September 22, 2021

In the past, Bitcoin.com News covered Andresen’s opinion concerning Ethereum’s Tornado mixing protocol and wallet privacy in general. Andresen also discussed the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network in January 2018 in a proposal he wrote called “Storing the UTXO as a bit-vector.” In more recent times, after the Tornado mixing blog post, Andresen shared his opinion in a blog post called: “It’s not about the tech (yet?)” Then, on September 21, 2021, Andresen once again has something to say about the Bitcoin (BTC) network.

The former Bitcoin Core developer said that people should “take this as a little piece of science fiction,” however, he further added, “of all the possible futures I think this has as good a chance of any of happening.”

“Imagine: it is the year 2061,” Andresen writes in his latest blog post. “The BTC price is six million US dollars– equal to about a million 2021 dollars because of inflation. Miners are being rewarded 0.006103515625 BTC per block, plus transaction fees of about 5 BTC for 4,000 or so transactions ($7,500 per transaction). But most BTC transactions don’t happen on the BTC network. Most BTC is locked up in multisignature outputs secured using multiparty computation and mirrored on another chain as ‘wrapped’ tokens,” Andresen adds. The blog post further stresses:

People moved their BTC either because they want faster transactions, lower fees, more privacy, or want to invest their BTC in decentralized financial stuff. Or maybe all of the above. The transactions that do occur on the main BTC network are high-value, mostly between super-whale-size holders (centralized exchanges, central banks, and the decentralized multiparty computation addresses that hold all the wrapped coins).

Andresen: ‘The Possibility of Zero Bitcoin Circulating on the Bitcoin Network’

Andresen’s theory could very well happen and there currently is a lot of wrapped or synthetic bitcoin (BTC) being used on other blockchains. Dune Analytics shows the number of BTC leveraged via Ethereum is 269,642 BTC across seven different projects. The Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) project commands an aggregate total of 205,921 of those coins at the time of writing. Andresen continues his theoretical post by saying the super whales take hold of the network forever.

“These whales maintain the BTC network forever,” Andresen writes. “They are the miners and the transaction creators; they don’t care how high transaction fees go, because they receive as many fees as they pay. In the year 2100, the whales notice that the mining reward is basically zero, and there are fewer and fewer transactions happening on the slow, expensive, zero-privacy BTC network. So they decide to simplify and save money by shutting it down,” the former Bitcoin developer adds. Andresen’s blog post goes on:

One by one, they shutdown the ‘bridges’ that move BTC between chains. Then they burn any BTC locked on the BTC chain by sending it to the 0x000… address, to make sure nobody can ever spend it on the BTC network. Eventually, there are zero new BTC being produced on the BTC network, and zero BTC circulating on the BTC network. There is nothing left to secure, and the chain stops.

Are Sidechains Competitors or Will They Help Bitcoin Scale?

Andresen concludes that roughly “20-or-so million BTC” will circulate on other blockchain networks. “Valuable because there are a limited number of them and because BTC was the first scarce digital asset,” Andresen deduces at the end of his blog post. Interestingly, the topic is being discussed in recent times, but not necessarily stemming from Andresen’s blog post.

By not actually settling anything in a discrete way.

I am not attacking Bitcoin, I am attacking Bitcoin misconceptions.

Don’t be upset, learn.

— John Carvalho (@BitcoinErrorLog) September 24, 2021

For instance, on September 24, the bitcoin pundit John Carvalho, otherwise known as “bitcoinerrorlog,” said: “Good morning, sidechains compete with Bitcoin, not scale it. (They also don’t actually exist.)” Carvalho followed up his tweet with the following opinions:

The original idea and design of a two-way peg was never achieved
They should be called anchorchains or something
They are like shitcoins that compete for transactions instead of as money.
They do not reduce sh**coin usage
They are not ‘on’ Bitcoin

Although, not everyone agreed with Carvalho’s opinion about sidechains. The bitcoin (BTC) proponent John Light shared his opinion about Carvalho’s statements:

“Good morning, sidechains that use BTC as the native asset and pay bitcoin miners for security don’t compete with bitcoin,” Light tweeted in response. “Even if sidechains that use BTC as the native asset didn’t pay bitcoin miners for security, they would be no less competing with bitcoin than, say, Lightning which siphons fees away from miners to LN routing nodes,” Light added in his Twitter thread. Light also shared a paper called “Scaling bitcoin with sidechains” and concluded:

Sidechains also help scale bitcoin.

What do you think about Gavin Andresen’s recent theoretical blog post about the Bitcoin network in the future? What do you think about the conversation between the bitcoin proponents John Carvalho and John Light? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Satoshi’s 21 Million Mystery: One-Millionth of the Bitcoin Supply Cap Is Now Worth $1 Million

07/03/2021 by Idelto Editor

On Sunday, March 7, 2021, the price per bitcoin jumped over the $50k handle once again, as the digital asset’s overall market capitalization is around $925 billion. One thing is for certain, there will never be more than 21 million bitcoin and today there’s roughly 18,647,525 bitcoin in circulation. Interestingly, anyone who owns 21 bitcoin or one-millionth of the entire supply is currently a millionaire today.

The ’21 Million Bitcoin Club’

Back in 2017, finance publications reported on a number of crypto proponents “gunning” for exclusive membership into the ’21 million club.’ The 21 million club refers to the number of bitcoins that will ever be produced and by the year 2140, that number will be 21 million BTC. During the last few years, many enthusiasts have tried to join the 21 million club by obtaining a single bitcoin, which is exchanging hands for a touch over $50k on Sunday morning.

For years now people can find a myriad of forum posts about people who have finally made it into the exclusive club of owners who hold a single bitcoin (BTC).

“After almost [two] years in crypto, I finally got in,” an individual wrote on Reddit two years ago. “It might be small for most of you here, but for a person in a third world country, this is a huge accomplishment. Now, to focus on my [altcoins], then sell them for BTC at the most opportune moment. Wish me luck,” he added.

Members of the 21 million club who own a single BTC, also own precisely 0.0000047619% of the entire supply per owner. Then there’s another club of bitcoiners who have obtained approximately 21 BTC or 0.0000999999% of the entire capped bitcoin supply.

Today one-millionth of the bitcoin supply is now worth over 1 million U.S. dollars. One-millionth of the bitcoin supply is approximately 21 bitcoin. This week, is another instance of this occasion, as BTC prices dropped in value a few days ago after reaching an all-time high (ATH) at $58,354 on February 21.

Ten days prior to the bitcoin (BTC) price ATH, crypto writer Pete Rizzo tweeted “One-millionth of the bitcoin supply is now worth $1 million.” At the time of publication, 132,325 addresses hold anywhere between 10-100 BTC, and owners of one-millionth of the bitcoin supply are represented among this aggregate of addresses.

Besides the enthusiasts that want to simply join the 21 million club by owning a single coin, there are many who have been obsessed with joining the club of owners who own a millionth of the BTC supply.

“The 21 BTC club becomes more difficult to join,” explains a web portal dubbed “21-btc.club.”

Why Did Satoshi Choose the 21 Million Supply Cap?

The reasoning behind why Satoshi Nakamoto chose the 21 million supply limit may have been done purposely for a number of reasons. According to an email between Mike Hearn and Nakamoto, however, the Bitcoin network inventor chose the 21 million limit number so it would align with the M1 money supply of fiat currencies like the euro and U.S. dollar. Back in 2008, the M1 money supply was approximately 21 trillion when Nakamoto published the white paper.

“I wanted to pick something that would make prices similar to existing currencies, but without knowing the future, that’s very hard. I ended up picking something in the middle,” Nakamoto said in the email to Hearn.

Satoshi Nakamoto added:

If Bitcoin remains a small niche, it’ll be worth less per unit than existing currencies. If you imagine it being used for some fraction of world commerce, then there’s only going to be 21 million coins for the whole world, so it would be worth much more per unit.

The white paper’s math also shows that the 21 million number further aligns perfectly with some of the interesting design patterns within the software. For instance, the 21 million number is integral to the block reward halving, alongside the 10-minute average time to mine a BTC block. Rewards are also cut in half every 210,000 blocks mined, and currently miners get 6.25 BTC per block.

Interestingly, the smallest unit in the Bitcoin network is a single satoshi or 0.00000001 BTC. The Ph.D., Christian Seberino explained in 2018, that Satoshi likely chose the 21 million in order to “involve floating-point arithmetic.”

Seberino says that even though BTC’s supply limit seems arbitrary, the reasoning behind why Satoshi chose the number is quite sound.

“It helps avoid errors on most computer systems, and is likely sufficient for all possible transactions everywhere,” Seberino emphasized. “Floating-point arithmetic is a type of mathematics used by computers to handle decimals. Decimals are often represented with 64 bits where one bit denotes the sign, 11 bits denote an exponent, and, 52 bits denote a fraction.”

The paper written by Seberino adds:

To avoid rounding errors, it is often a good idea to avoid integers that cannot be represented with only the fraction bits. To be extra safe, it may help to also leave one fraction bit unused. With respect to 64 bit decimals, that would limit integers to 51 bits. The maximum integer that can be represented with 51 bits is just slightly over 2100 trillion.

We honestly don’t have a solid answer to why Nakamoto chose the 21 million limit and he could have had insights into some numerological concepts we don’t know about. The 21 million clubs, whether it be holders of one single coin or 21 bitcoins total, will likely continue to grow over time and even change hands across generational wealth boundaries.

Furthermore, every time bitcoin (BTC) increases by $50k, then the holders of 21 BTC will see a wealth increase by another $1 million USD. Some would say it’s not too late to join the clubs, if they are interested in carrying wealth into the future.

What do you think about the 21 million bitcoin club and the reasons behind why Satoshi Nakamoto chose that number for the supply limit? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Flipstarter Reveals Eatbch and BCH Development Funding Goals – Blog Post Receives $2k in Tips

25/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

On Sunday, developers of the Flipstarter.cash project announced the start of private testing for the platform’s BCH assurance contracts and the team also revealed the first two funding projects. One of the first funding goals will be raising bitcoin cash for the nonprofit food charity Eatbch in Venezuela and South Sudan. Additionally, Flipstarter hopes to raise $500,000 toward BCH infrastructure development and suggested a list of six full node teams that could leverage the application.

Also Read: Voluntary Financing: Bitcoin Cash Devs Reveal Noncustodial Funding App Flipstarter

Flipstarter’s First Two Campaigns: Eatbch and Six BCH Full Node Teams

On February 18, news.Bitcoin.com reported on a voluntary financing application for Bitcoin Cash called Flipstarter. The platform aims to be a noncustodial funding application similar to Mike Hearn’s Lighthouse project. When Flipstarter developers revealed the creation they detailed that the system would leverage BCH assurance contracts via an Anyone-can-pay Sighash. The project announcement was welcomed by the community and some people believe Flipstarter could be the answer to the ongoing Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP) debate.

#Flipstarter The path to public campaigns, a step closer every day!https://t.co/ej5iBrxYpg

— flipstartercash (@flipstartercash) February 24, 2020

Following the original announcement, Flipstarter published another read.cash blog post giving the public more details about the project’s initial goals. The first two goals will attempt to fund BCH infrastructure and the BCH community’s most popular charity Eatbch. Fund one’s campaign for Eatbch will start as a public beta as the developers have announced:

We have a lot of respect for the EatBCH volunteers in Venezuela and South Sudan. We would like to help them by funding one month of activities in both countries with the first Flipstarter campaign.

The other funding plan is to fuel the BCH ecosystem with an overall $500,000 target. “Target for funding is $500k in total by May 2 — It will be both meaningful and hard given the rough state of the user experience,” the Flipstarter devs explained. “Flipstarter will either be helping teams to run their own campaigns or supporting an existing social media platform to run a platform for campaigns. That will be the topic of another article. For now, we will be conservative and commit to supporting a narrow list of six full node teams to run campaigns. This is obviously an invitation with no requirement. The teams are free to participate or not and to set up whatever amount that they want,” the Flipstarter team added. Currently, the list of full node projects mentioned includes:

BCHD
Bitcoin ABC
Bitcoin Cash Node
Bitcoin Unlimited
Bitcoin Verde
Flowee

Flipstarter’s Read.cash Post Receives $2k in BCH Tips

Flipstarter’s creators say that the campaigns for the current list and ones going forward will need a decent proposal. The read.cash post got some positive comments from the community and one of the developers of the BCH Node, Freetrader, commented on the Flipstarter funding concept. “I’m sure the Bitcoin Cash Node project would like to use this — Let’s see how far we get,” Freetrader remarked.

Flipstarter’s programmers include a slew of BCH volunteers such as Imaginary Username, Emergent Reasons, Sploit, Leandro DiMarco, Jonathan Silverblood, and Dagur. Flipstarter developers are inviting people to join the project’s official Telegram channel if they are interested in learning about this new project. The team has also come up with a list of funding ideas like a full-time maintainer who needs funds, money for operational expenses like websites and servers, and financing ongoing maintenance.

The announcement about BCH infrastructure funding and financing for Eatbch also got $2,000 worth of BCH tips. The Flipstarter app will be a plugin for Electron Cash and the team’s developers have written a descriptive walkthrough on how it will work. “Target for completion is March 7,” the Flipstarter software developers revealed.

What do you think about the Flipstarter project for Bitcoin Cash? Do you think that a concept like this could bolster voluntary financing for the Bitcoin Cash commons? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Flipstarter.cash, read.cash, Fair Use, Eatbch.org, and Pixabay.

Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here.

The post Flipstarter Reveals Eatbch and BCH Development Funding Goals – Blog Post Receives $2k in Tips appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Voluntary Financing: Bitcoin Cash Devs Reveal Noncustodial Funding App Flipstarter

18/02/2020 by Idelto Editor

On February 15, a user on the read.cash blog site announced the development of a new Bitcoin Cash fundraising project called Flipstarter.cash. The developers behind the platform highlighted the recent questions people have been asking about voluntary funding of the Bitcoin Cash commons. The Flipstarter team plans to release an application that allows people to fund projects in a “secure, non-custodial” fashion using the Electron Cash wallet.

Also Read: The Many Facts Pointing to Dorian Nakamoto Being Satoshi

Flipstarter: A Lighthouse-Like Bitcoin Cash Crowdfunding App Is Coming Soon

A team of software developers have revealed they are working on a BCH project called Flipstarter.cash which will allow people to fund projects in a noncustodial manner. The project announcement said that “a group of volunteers came together to create Flipstarter” referring to the recent discussions over the Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP). The blog post mentions the “big questions in the air right now in the Bitcoin Cash space” and explains that the project was created to help bolster a voluntary funding mechanism for the BCH ecosystem.

Introducing https://t.co/6jIezfv9U5 https://t.co/BBg2s39OQ2

— flipstartercash (@flipstartercash) February 15, 2020

Over the next few weeks, the group of BCH developers plan to test and release the software. The project is similar to Mike Hearn’s Lighthouse project that was shelved when he left the Bitcoin community. The developers disclosed that “Flipstarter is basically Lighthouse but boiled down to the main feature. That is an old feature of Bitcoin transactions called ‘Anyone-can-pay.’”

In traditional bitcoin cash transactions, when you sign you authorize all the outputs and inputs. But with an Anyone-can-pay Sighash, a crowdfunding transaction (signing a partial transaction) can be built by approving all outputs and only your inputs. Anyone-can-pay transactions can make it so pledged donations need to reach a threshold (funding goal) before they are spent. “In other words, as long as everyone agrees on the total output, anyone can help pay, and everything happens trustlessly,” Flipstarter’s creators detailed. “We need to create a way for people to participate in assurance contracts,” the programmers added. However, the Anyone-can-pay structure doesn’t have much wallet support so for the first version the programmers chose to create a plugin for Electron Cash (EC).

User-Friendliness Is Great But a Trustless Noncustodial Solution Is Needed

Essentially, a user would install the EC plugin and select a proposal from the Flipstarter website. Then they can set a pledge value and copy and paste some text which adds the necessary information into the EC plugin. The EC plugin will then build a signed, partial transaction that is frozen and you can “unfreeze it at any time.” The Flipstarter website monitors the pledges until the soft cap or funding goal is complete. “The site finalizes the assurance contract, and pays out to the target addresses,” the Flipstarter developers said. “If the campaign does not get enough pledges, then everyone can un-freeze their pledge and use it as normal. That is, the coin never leaves Electron Cash until the whole campaign succeeds.” Flipstarter’s creators added:

It looks a bit clunky, but the process is more secure, non-custodial, does not require the user to take their coins out of Electron Cash and it lets us get something working with limited time and resources.

The developers have contemplated other options, but for now they are sticking with the EC plugin because it is a trustless, non-custodial solution. Of course, the Flipstarter creators are just getting started and the user interface and concept can be improved a great deal. “Volunteers will continue to develop it, and there is opportunity for a for-profit team to develop it into a full-fledged platform — Whatever happens, we are making the first version so that anyone can fork it and run a campaign by themselves,” Flipstarter’s developers insisted. Currently, the volunteers working on Flipstarter include developers such as Dagur, Jonathan#100, Leandro_DiMarco, Imaginary Username, Emergent Reasons, and Sploit.

What do you think about the Flipstarter plugin for Electron Cash? Do you think that a concept like this could bolster voluntary financing for the Bitcoin Cash commons? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Flipstarter.cash, read.cash, Fair Use, and Pixabay.

The post Voluntary Financing: Bitcoin Cash Devs Reveal Noncustodial Funding App Flipstarter appeared first on Bitcoin News.