$100 Billion Bitcoin Wallet Linked to Satoshi Nakamoto Sparks Price Alert as Mystery Grows Deeper

Bitcoin has surged back into the spotlight following the election of Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "crypto president," whose return to the White House may trigger a bitcoin price surge. This has reignited interest in the mystery surrounding Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of bitcoin, whose true identity has remained a mystery even as the cryptocurrency's value surpasses $100,000. Last year, an HBO documentary claimed to have finally uncovered his identity.

Now, with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk confirming his bitcoin-inspired plans for the U.S. Treasury, a Coinbase executive has suggested that rival crypto exchange Kraken may know who Satoshi Nakamoto is. Fresh data shows that Nakamoto's bitcoin stockpile could be worth over $100 billion.

"I went through Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallets," posted Coinbase director Conor Grogan on an X thread. “My best guess is that Satoshi was last active on-chain in 2014 … He may have used a Canadian BTC exchange [and] Kraken may know the identity of Satoshi.”

The last known message from Satoshi Nakamoto, who claimed to have “moved on to other things,” was sent to bitcoin developer Mike Hearn in 2011.

On February 10, Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of the $141 billion USDT stablecoin issuer Tether, warned that quantum computing could eventually hack inactive bitcoin wallets, possibly putting the $100 billion worth of bitcoin from Nakamoto's wallets back into circulation.

"Any bitcoin in lost wallets, including Satoshi (if not alive), will be hacked and put back in circulation," Ardoino wrote on X. He added: “Quantum computing is still very far from any meaningful risk of breaking bitcoin cryptography [and] quantum-resistant addresses will eventually be added to bitcoin before there is any serious threat."

However, Ardoino expects that “all people alive (and who have access to their wallets) will move bitcoin into new quantum-resistant addresses.”

Recent advancements in quantum computing suggest that fully operational quantum computers may arrive within the next decade. Pierre-Luc Dallaire-Demers, a scientist-in-residence at the University of Calgary, stated that “We are about five years away from commercial quantum computers being able to break the elliptic curve keys that secure bitcoin wallets.”

Last month, Tether reported a staggering $13 billion profit for 2024, driven by its bitcoin holdings, gold, U.S. Treasury bonds, and other financial assets, according to an “attestation” released by the accounting firm BDO.

Grogan also identified a bitcoin address linked to the Canadian-based exchange CaVirtEx, which was acquired by Kraken in 2016. Grogan speculated that Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell or others at Kraken may have access to information that could reveal Satoshi Nakamoto's true identity through customer records associated with the wallet.

"My advice to him would be to delete the data," Grogan commented.

Since publishing the bitcoin white paper in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto has successfully kept their real identity hidden, even as bitcoin has grown into a $2 trillion asset. Given the rise in bitcoin's price, Nakamoto’s holdings may now be worth approximately $100 billion if they still control the bitcoins believed to be stored in various wallet addresses.

In response to Grogan’s claims, Kraken's official X account posted: “We are all Satoshi,” echoing a popular bitcoin community meme that suggests either Satoshi Nakamoto's real-world identity isn’t important or that if Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t want to be found, no one should be searching.

New evidence, gathered from Arkham Intelligence, uses the Patoshi Pattern, a set of bitcoin addresses linked to Nakamoto. Recently, Arkham added 22,000 new addresses connected to Satoshi Nakamoto, with a total bitcoin balance of 1,096,354 BTC. These addresses were mined following a unique pattern, and they include the only known addresses from which Satoshi has spent bitcoin.