When Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in 2008, he laid out a plan for how the new digital currency would function. One key component was that Nakamoto himself would mine the first batch of Bitcoin, which he then distributed to early adopters and developers to jumpstart the network.
Since then, Nakamoto’s cache of Bitcoin has remained untouched, leading many to wonder how many BTC the enigmatic creator of Bitcoin actually owns.
At the time of Nakamoto’s Genesis block mining, he created a total of 21 million BTC. Of that, it’s estimated that he mined around 1 million BTC himself.
So, if Nakamoto has never spent any of his mined Bitcoin, he would currently hold approximately 1 million BTC, worth over $9 billion at today’s prices.
However, there is reason to believe that Nakamoto may have spent some of his early mined Bitcoin. In 2010, Nakamoto sent a total of 50 BTC to Hal Finney, a close friend and early developer on the Bitcoin project.
If Nakamoto did indeed send those 50 BTC to Finney, then his current balance would be closer to 950,000 BTC.
There are also a few small transactions from 2009 that could be attributed to Nakamoto, but nothing definitive. So it’s still possible that he could hold even more than 950,000 BTC.
In any case, Satoshi Nakamoto’s cache of Bitcoin is worth an astounding amount of money. And given the fact that Nakamoto has never touched his Bitcoin or even revealed his true identity, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know for sure how many BTC he actually holds.