How many bitcoins does Satoshi have: the creator of cryptocurrency ranks in the top 10 wealthiest people on the planet

The mysterious blockchain architect owns a huge fortune in cryptocurrency, accumulated since the early days of mining. How many bitcoins does Satoshi Nakamoto have, and what is the real value of his reserves — these are questions that have occupied the crypto community for the past decade. Recent analyses have shown that his assets surpass the wealth of many well-known billionaires, including the founder of Microsoft.

Million Crypto Coins: The Early Mining Era

During Bitcoin’s inception, the creator actively mined coins himself. In the first months of the network’s existence, the reward for each found block was 50 BTC. It is believed that during the first half of 2009, an unknown developer mined over a million bitcoins by continuously processing computations on the network.

Interestingly, there is a hypothesis: Satoshi could have increased his mining volume but deliberately limited it by regulating his hardware parameters. This allowed other network participants to find blocks and earn the first coins.

How Researchers Estimated Satoshi’s Holdings

Cryptographer and security expert Sergio Damian Lerner conducted a detailed study to estimate how many bitcoins the blockchain creator might have mined. His work was titled “Satoshi Nakamoto’s Deserved Wealth” and analyzed all blocks processed from January 2009 to the end of January 2010.

Lerner discovered that one mining operation created thousands of consecutive blocks during this period, securing approximately 1 million BTC in rewards. To denote this distinctive sequence of operations, the concept of the “Patoshi Model” was introduced — a characteristic pattern of blocks indicating a single miner. Since these blocks started from the network’s genesis block, the researcher hypothesized that Patoshi is a pseudonym for Satoshi Nakamoto himself.

Complete Silence: Why Bitcoin Isn’t Moving

The anonymous developer cut off all contact with the public in 2010. Since then, his activity on the network has been zero — none of his bitcoins have ever been moved to other addresses or sold. Crypto enthusiasts have been speculating for twenty years: is the creator still alive, and if so, what reasons prevent him from using his accumulated wealth?

Many in the crypto community believe that Satoshi is no longer alive. In that case, his bitcoins should be considered lost to the market — they will never be sold and cannot influence the price. However, other enthusiasts still believe that the creator is alive and could appear at any moment.

Satoshi’s Wealth Surpasses Microsoft’s Founder Capital

According to data from the analytics platform Arkham, Satoshi’s portfolio contains 1.096 million bitcoins. As of the May 2025 research, this was worth approximately $120.4 billion. This amount accounts for 5.2% of the entire digital currency supply, making Satoshi the eleventh wealthiest person in the world.

For comparison, MicroStrategy, which has been intentionally accumulating BTC since August 2020, owns only 2.763% of circulating Bitcoin. Satoshi’s holdings are more than one and a half times greater than this company’s assets in cryptocurrency.

In the context of global wealth: Bill Gates, the former head of Microsoft, has assets worth $115 billion. Thus, the creator of Bitcoin’s reserves, by value, surpass the wealth of one of the most influential tech magnates.

Market Risks and Community Speculation

If Satoshi decides to sell his Bitcoin holdings, the global cryptocurrency market could face a serious crash. Such a large-scale liquidation would disrupt the balance and cause panic among investors.

At the same time, crypto enthusiasts largely agree that there is no need to fear this. They believe that the developer has long since passed away, and his coins are essentially locked. These assets can no longer influence the market. Nevertheless, some mystery lovers still hold hope for Satoshi’s return.

There are also alternative theories denying the very existence of Satoshi Nakamoto. Proponents of such versions claim that the blockchain’s creator is not an individual but an organization of government regulators. However, these assumptions remain speculative and lack credible evidence.