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by shrimp_emoji
3342 days ago
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Development_o... >Timestamps for subsequent blocks indicate that Nakamoto did not try to mine all the early blocks solely for themselves in an effort to benefit from a Ponzi scheme. But they could have. >The public bitcoin transaction log shows that Nakamoto's known addresses contain roughly one million bitcoins. As of 7 February 2017, this is the equivalent of over US$1 billion. Starting your own cryptocurrency doesn't seem like a bad way to make a buck (particularly provided it becomes as successful as bitcoin), all thanks (eventually) to "the biggest names in finance and technology". Granted, there's a strong difference between "potential scam" and "scam" (hell, it's the difference between Torcoin and every legitimate, well-regulated non-crypto currency). |
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This seems sort of unfair. I mean, one of the things that has helped stabilize Bitcoin is that it wasn't controlled by a single entity, and many of the early blocks haven't gone anywhere. Several other cryptos have done poorly because some early consortium got too much control and everyone else backed off.
One advantage of the public transaction log is that it helps people judge whether they're being scammed this way. Nakamoto made a killing, certainly, but I also suspect that a sudden sell-off of the origin block would tank prices.