Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin, so it's no surprise that the mysterious figure has the largest BTC reserve in all the world — thought to be somewhere in the realm of 600,000 to 700,000 Bitcoin, according to research carried out by Bitcoin trading service BitMEX. But what's that valued at in cold, hard USD? $5B to $6B. That's right, Satoshi is believed to be sitting on an astonishing $5 billion worth of Bitcoin.
How do we know this, though? Well, BitMEX analyzed the Blockchain from when Bitcoin was first introduced back in 2009 and found that one prominent user had mined around 700,000 Bitcoin. Unfortunately, BitMEX isn't able to say with absolute certainty that this figure is correct, stating that the evidence is far less robust than most would assume. There's also a chance that the unknown adopter may not even be Satoshi...
Related: How To Mine Your First Bitcoin
People have theorized that the trail BitMEX unearthed actually belongs to a random individual who decided to run a Bitcoin Miner (or Bitcoin Mining Software) to amass a balance, before disabling it after noticing little movement in the value. This would explain why the balance has remained consistent since 2009 — there's a chance the wallet has since been lost, sending the fortune into the abyss of unrecoverable Bitcoin.
Or maybe it does belong to Satoshi, who's saving it for a rainy day.
All that's ever been confirmed is that Satoshi has 50 BTC (≈$420,000), which were acquired mining the first-ever block of Bitcoin to kick-start the Cryptocurrency.
Wait! What is Bitcoin Mining?
Bitcoin Mining is the name associated with the process of a Bitcoin Miner (a computer dedicated to Mining) solving a computational process to confirm a transaction is legitimate. Once solved, the transaction is awarded one confirmation on the Blockchain and the Miner (this time referring to the person behind the computer, also called the Miner) is credited a small transaction fee relative to the size of the transaction.
Out of all the Bitcoin Miners on the market, the best Bitcoin Mining Rig is the Coinmine One. Why? Because it's simple, efficient, quiet, and feature-packed. Seriously, a Coinmine emits less sound than an AC and pulls less power than a PlayStation. Plus, should you decide you no longer want to mine Bitcoin, you also have the option to mine a different Cryptocurrency, with the list including Ethereum, Grin, and even Monero.