Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto
This currently isn't "news," as the paper hasn't been published yet, and none of the disclosed findings are too damning or conclusive.<p>That being said, it's important for two reasons:<p>1.) the paper gets published tomorrow, which will lead to a round of negative press, regardless of the claims' merit.<p>2.) More significant: it highlights what I see as an existential threat to the Bitcoin experiment: a.) the poor distribution of early wealth and b.) the possibility that a great percentage of all Bitcoins are currently held by bad actors (criminals, anarchists, use your imagination).<p>A few things to consider:
1. A list of richest Bitcoin addresses is not a good representation of the concentration of wealth. A single person can have x wallets, just like this Ulbricht character.
2. Bitcoin wealth is often used to reinvest in mining equipment, which furthers one's wealth to a greater extent. Rinse/repeat.<p>Several of the oldest wallets have been dormant for years, which means that this is not hypothetical -- that wealth has not circulated.<p><i>edit made to be clear about "bad actors"</i>:<p>"Bad actors" meaning: unpredictable and possibly having malicious intent.<p>If Bitcoin becomes a more important part of our daily lives, handling commerce ubiquitously, etc.--a single individual with ~10+% of said Bitcoin has enormous disruptive potential.  I'm not referring to what said person could purchase with that wealth, but one's ability to manipulate markets.<p>This has never been a big issue, as far as the growth in value of the currency.  However, I think this kind of uncertainty could freak out potential institutional investors.<p>Altcoins like Litecoin, PPC, Namecoin, etc - do not suffer as much from this issue because their exposure was far greater than Bitcoin ca. 2009, and the mining competition was greater on the respective debut-dates by several orders of magnitude.