Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakomoto Is Now One of the World's Wealthiest People

Based on estimated holdings, Satoshi Nakamoto just beats out Michael Bloomberg.

High Score

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous figure who created Bitcoin back in 2009, is now one of the richest people alive — assuming the unidentified coder is still alive in the first place.

Based on Bitcoin.com's calculations, the roughly 1 million Bitcoin in Nakamoto's account is worth around $59 billion today. With additional funds like various Bitcoin caches, that would make Nakamoto the 19th-wealthiest person alive, according to Forbes' recently updated list of the world's richest billionaires — right above Michael Bloomberg and immediately between Walmart heirs Sam and Jim Walton.

Secret Stash

Of course, no one really knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is, or even whether there's really just one person or a team behind the pseudonym — all questions that help explain why Nakamoto wasn't included in Forbes' ranking in the first place.

But Bitcoin's creator, whoever it may be, mined and then never spent between 750,000 and 1.1 million of the cryptocurrency shortly after creating it. So even with a more conservative estimate than Bitcoin.com's, there's definitely a whole lot of money at play here given that each Bitcoin is worth around $63,150 today.

And most of that value appeared very recently. Just five months ago, Nakamoto's Bitcoin stash was only enough to make them the 159th richest person on Earth, Bitcoin.com notes.

READ MORE: Bitcoin's Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Now a Member of the Top 20 World's Richest People [Bitcoin.com]

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