Satoshi’s 1.1 Million Bitcoin Fortune Relies on Circumstantial Evidence

Satoshi's 1.1 Million Bitcoin — Forensic analysis of Bitcoin‘s earliest blocks suggests its pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, mined approximately 1.1 million BTC, but researchers emphasize the evidence remains circumstantial and the coins cannot be definitively linked to a single person.

The estimate stems from a distinctive mining pattern identified by researcher Sergio Demian Lerner in 2013, known as the “Patoshi” pattern, which appears across thousands of early blocks. Lerner maintains his calculation is accurate, though he notes there is no mathematical proof or direct witness. Supporting the link, several early Bitcoin users received transfers exhibiting the same Patoshi pattern.

The distinction between a mining operation and an individual became critical in September 2026 when 600 BTC mined in March 2010 moved after 16 years. On-chain analysis by Bitquery found no connection between those coins and the Patoshi pattern, with researcher Gaurav Agrawal stating the blockchain only records that someone controlled the keys, which could have been inherited, sold, or stolen.

Bitquery recently rebuilt the fingerprint from raw blocks, finding 99.2% agreement with the public Patoshi list. However, Agrawal cautions that while the pattern is strongly identifiable, the chain cannot confirm if the person who spent coins in 2026 is the same person who ran the mining machine in 2010.