[chill1]

> You think a guy smart enough to give birth to Bitcoin, and maintain complete anonymity while doing so and while communicating in public forums etc, would forget his private key?

> You just need to remember one seed and suddenly you have billions of dollars of value stored in your brain. I don't think that's a realistic possibility.

BIP39 mnemonics ("seeds") were not around in the early days. Bitcoin core software generated random private keys that were completely unrelated to one another. So it was necessary to backup the wallet file each time that new keys were created. Most users would generate hundreds (or thousands) of keys at a time, to reduce the frequency of backups.

[eecks]

So how could you use these private keys now? Considering they're not seeds.

EDIT: downvoted for asking a question

[bayesianbot]

I can still import a wallet from at least 2012 and move the coins using the official client just like it was created yesterday.

edit: and obviously you can't remember that but if you encrypt your wallet you can save it to long term storages like Dropbox / differrent servers / medias / etc, what Satoshi would most likely be doing

[chill1]

Any one of those individual private keys could be imported into another wallet software application (e.g Electrum). Then the funds can be swept to a newer wallet that has a seed backup.

Private keys are just numbers. That has not changed since the beginning.

[CydeWeys]

They're still supported by most if not all wallets.

[__blockcipher__]

I see. Very interesting! I wasn't involved that early so wasn't aware :)

Anyway, my general point stands, just s/remember a seed/store an encrypted file

Personally I think Satoshi is either dead or never going to move his bitcoin.