Bitcoin ‘Father’ Challenges the Position of the World’s Richest Man

Bitcoin ‘father’ Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly rose to 11th place on the list of the world’s richest people after the price of this digital currency increased sharply.

The booming Bitcoin market has helped Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, enter the top 11 richest people in the world. Photo: TL .

Bitcoin officially hit a historic peak of $122,000 in the trading session earlier this week, pushing the value of the cryptocurrency assets of mysterious founder Satoshi Nakamoto to more than $134 billion .

Although he has never appeared publicly or withdrawn any Bitcoin from his personal wallet, this spectacular price increase has brought Nakamoto past many famous billionaires such as Michael Dell or Rob Walton in the rankings of the world’s richest people.

Holds 10x the Total Bitcoin of the Whales

According to analysis from blockchain company Arkham, Nakamoto is believed to control around 1.096 million Bitcoins, distributed across thousands of wallets created since the early days of the digital currency.

These wallets, like their owners, have been “inactive” for more than a decade, since Nakamoto suddenly withdrew from technology forums in 2011. However, his BTC holdings still far exceed those of any “whale” in the market (people and organizations holding large amounts of Bitcoin), including the biggest names.

Specifically, the Winklevoss brothers, famous Bitcoin investors after their lawsuit with Mark Zuckerberg, are currently believed to hold about 70,000 BTC. Tim Draper, a veteran venture capitalist, owns about 30,000 BTC after winning a US government auction in 2014.

Meanwhile, Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, who turned his company into a Bitcoin vault, is also said to hold around 17,732 BTC.

In total, the three investors above hold about 117,000 BTC, which is only about 1/10 of the amount of Bitcoin in Nakamoto’s hands.

MicroStrategy is now the company that owns the most Bitcoin in the world. Photo: Shutterstock.

Even according to data from BiTBO, the total amount of Bitcoin held by all businesses and custodians in the world is only about 847,000 BTC (equivalent to 4% of Bitcoin’s maximum supply), which is less than the amount of Bitcoin held by Nakamoto alone.

According to TradingView , any movement from one of Nakamoto’s thousands of Bitcoin wallets could shake up the entire global cryptocurrency market.

Challenge the position of the richest person in the world?

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas believes that if Bitcoin continues its 50% annual growth, Nakamoto’s fortune could surpass that of billionaire Warren Buffett this year. In fact, Bitcoin’s “father” could surpass Mark Zuckerberg in 2026 to become the second richest person in the world, behind only Elon Musk.

Currently, although Bitcoin has reached a historical peak, Nakamoto’s assets are still quite far from Elon Musk – who is leading the global billionaire rankings with assets of approximately 404 billion USD .

To surpass the Tesla CEO, Bitcoin’s price would need to increase by about 208%, equivalent to each BTC reaching $370,000 , assuming the asset values of other billionaires do not fluctuate significantly.

This increase may sound far-fetched, but in a market known for its high volatility and sudden breakouts like cryptocurrencies, such a scenario is not impossible.

Notably, what makes Satoshi Nakamoto’s story so special, and so different from the rest of the billionaires on the list, is his absolute silence.

“It’s amazing that the founder of something so successful has never taken a penny of the profits,” Balchunas commented.

Balchunas compares Nakamoto to investment legend Jack Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, who revolutionized the financial industry by creating low-cost index funds that made investing accessible to millions of people.

Jack Bogle – founder of the famous investment group The Vanguard Group. Photo: USA Today.

Although Vanguard managed trillions of dollars, Bogle died in 2019 with a fortune of only about $80 million — a small number compared to the influence he left.

Because he believes that his mission is to serve investors, not to enrich himself. This ideology is very similar to the way Nakamoto kept silent and never “cash-in” from the empire he built.

However, Nakamoto’s identity remains a mystery. Some recent suspicions have been directed at Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, but no concrete evidence has been provided. Meanwhile, claims to be Satoshi, such as Craig Wright’s, have all been rejected by the courts.