I'm sure Satoshi has coins that others don't know about, the early blocks were all Satoshi but later blocks were mined by dozens of enthusiasts. Satoshi could have easily made an anonymous fortune in the early days.
I imagine Satoshi is out there keeping a close eye on the cryptocurrency scene. Maybe one day if action is needed (funding infrastructure, adoption of a bitcoin successor, destroying bitcoin??) he will put the early blocks into motion.
Or he lost the password. Or the coins were in cold storage on a disk that crashed. Or maybe he simply deleted the first few because in the early days they were worthless.
Those are just some scenarios that strike me as a hell of a lot more plausible than someone sitting on a fortune for the hell of it. Why? Because we've all experienced those things.
Maybe they just left the field entirely? Burned out? They could even be dead for all we know.
If I was them, I really don't know if I'd keep a close eye on the "scene". I'm sure some people know that feeling of just stopping to care for something.
But on the other hand, they must have been really passionnate. But that could fuel an even stronger "no longer caring" feeling.
I think Satoshi disappeared b/c he was concerned about his privacy after wikileaks blowup. This is his 3rd to last post ever, it was concerning an article in PC World about bitcoin.
>"It would have been nice to get this attention in any other context. WikiLeaks has kicked the hornet's nest, and the swarm is headed towards us."
I imagine Satoshi is out there keeping a close eye on the cryptocurrency scene. Maybe one day if action is needed (funding infrastructure, adoption of a bitcoin successor, destroying bitcoin??) he will put the early blocks into motion.