重大疑问：中本聪真的拥有110万枚比特币吗？

The wealth mystery of Bitcoin's anonymous founders: On-chain tracing cannot confirm identity

The first thing people learn when they learn about Bitcoin is that it has an anonymous founder-and this person is believed to be a billionaire who is several times worth. Nearly 1.1 million bitcoins are widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, but the number is not based on the identification of a specific individual, but stems from a forensic trace of mining activity. In addition, this estimate can vary by more than 200,000 bitcoins depending on the severity of the test for a particular "fingerprint".

The importance of this distinction was highlighted when the 600 bitcoins dug up in 2010 suddenly moved after 16 years of slumbering, triggering speculation that "Satoshi's coins" were awakened. The coins came from 12 long-dormant block rewards that were dug up in four days in March 2010 and were not used again until September 5 this year. At that time, the person holding the private key spent the funds one by one within half an hour.

But that doesn't mean that the person who spent the $46 million in Bitcoin was Satoshi Nakamoto. Blockchain tracks coins, not people.

On-chain tracking platform Whale Alert found that there was no connection between the 600 bitcoins and the hoarding of the mysterious Bitcoin creator. Blockchain research company Bitquery found that 10 of the 12 blocks did not conform to the mining model unique to Satoshi Nakamoto's mining operation known as "Patoshi." The remaining two blocks showed only weak matches, which may have occurred by chance, according to Bitquery researcher Gaurav Agrawal.

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Although these rewards were dug up by a single machine, and the person who spent them this month controlled the private key, as Agrawal pointed out: "The blockchain cannot explain whether the hand in 2026 belonged to the person who ran that machine in 2010."

Because private keys can be inherited, sold, stolen, or recovered from old hard drives found in second-hand stores, this mystery will likely never be solved. "Only someone owns it on the chain," Agrawal pointed out.

The spending transaction used modern wallet software that clients couldn't generate in 2010, so "at least, the key was loaded into something new."

The wealth truth behind Patoshi's model

If the blockchain cannot tell us who the owners of those original coins are, how can we know that those 1.1 million bitcoins actually belong to Satoshi Nakamoto? Circumstantial evidence is the best evidence we have.

In 2013, researcher Sergio Demian Lerner discovered a unique fingerprint in the earliest blocks of Bitcoin, indicating that a miner was running a machine differently than other miners on the network, a feature that can be traced across thousands of blocks. Lerner estimated that the miner had accumulated about 1.1 million bitcoins, and more than a decade later, he still stands by his calculations.

Sergio Dermian Lerner recognized the Patoshi pattern. Source: Bitslong

他告诉媒体：“这是准确的，但有一个免责声明，即证据是间接的；没有数学证明或直接证人。”

然而，他表示，将Patoshi与中本聪联系起来的原因不仅仅在于挖矿指纹，因为几位早期的比特币用户，包括Hal Finney、Dustin D. Trammell、Nicholas Bohm和Mike Hearn，都收到了表现出Patoshi模式的转账：

“所有这些转账都是来自具有Patoshi模式的coinbase：这提供了令人信服的理由，认为Patoshi和中本聪是同一个人，尽管这并非确凿证据。”

Lerner还表示，该矿工似乎使用的是专用挖矿软件，而不是标准客户端，这很可能是在比特币推出之前创建的。这使得“极不可能”有另一位矿工在比特币v0.1公告与第一个区块挖出之间的几个小时内开发出可用的专用设置。他说：“无论谁在挖掘Patoshi模式，都是从最早期开始的。”

Bitquery从零重建财富数据

Lerner识别出Patoshi模式13年后，Bitquery从原始区块重新构建了这一指纹，对比特币早期时代的54,316个区块进行了分级，并追踪每一枚硬币直到2026年9月1日。

他们的“最高等级”重建与公共Patoshi列表在99.2%的区块上达成一致，并且在对5,836个相邻区块对的timestamp-ordering测试中，该公司发现了零例外。“我不知道有更强的测试方法，”Agrawal说。

Bitquery对总财富的估算。来源：Bitquery.io

但是，分析对著名的110万枚比特币这个数字本身提出了一些疑问，因为Bitquery发现的数字取决于应用模式的严格程度。相关：比特币波动性太大，不适合用于退休投资吗？

Agrawal表示：“严格来说，指纹覆盖的比特币不到90万枚，而‘最宽松的解释’约为117万枚。”

这并不是说Bitquery推翻了Lerner的估算，但它显示了Patoshi囤积规模的大小取决于挖矿模式的应用方式。“公布的100万至113万的估算值位于该范围内，所以我们没有改变这个数字，”Agrawal说。

什么将中本聪与110万枚比特币联系起来？

Agrawal表示，“中本聪拥有110万枚比特币”这一说法实际上是三个层层叠加的主张。

“中本聪”是最大的BTC持有者。来源：Arkham

有强有力的证据支持这些硬币来自同一台机器的说法。有间接证据支持该机器属于中本聪的说法，而由于这些硬币从未移动过，声称密钥仍由他控制的说法无法得到证实。

Bitquery还发现了一笔2010年的交易，它在“任何已发表的研究”中未被报道。2010年5月17日，来自早期挖矿奖励的600枚比特币在两笔间隔约一小时的交易中移动。第一笔交易在UTC时间22:04发生，花费了价值500枚比特币的10个区块奖励；第二笔交易在UTC时间23:07发生，花费了另外两个价值100枚比特币的区块奖励。

这些硬币是在2009年不同的时间点挖出的，包括比特币第一年接近开始和结束时的奖励。“我认为这很重要，”Agrawal说，“因为这是最清晰的时刻，区块链本身（而不是统计模式）表明这些区块属于一起。”他说，这是“区块链能做到的最接近”确认整个2009年的区块都存放在一个钱包中的情况，“而这正是该模式对整个集合所声称的。”

因此，我们知道控制这些密钥的人有权访问2009年挖出的区块奖励，但我们不知道背后是谁。

与2010年5月的交易不同，今年9月移动的600枚比特币不属于Patoshi矿工，也没有新证据将它们与“中本聪”的囤积联系起来。正如Agrawal所说：“数学中没有定论，所以我们永远无法确定。”