Federal investigators should probably also probe who controls that sizeable chunk of dormant bitcoin that's projected to be valued higher than a significant chunk of the US economy in a few years.
This used to be a non-serious question. But now we've got presidential candidates calling for national debt ceilings that will result in a default on US debt, and therefore crash the US dollar. Bitcoin's getting integrated into every payment app as if these companies are readying for an eventual modern equivalent of a run on the banks. Except with everyone moving their money to crypto instead of getting 'real dollars' to stuff into their mattresses.
There's a 99.99%+ likelihood that Satoshi just.. lost his wallet one day, or died, or whatever.
BUT -- assume a 0.01% possibility that there is something else at play with that early-mined bitcoin. Assume the _impact_ of a negative outcome with it will eventually be on the order of entire economies.
If you use common practice to calculate security risk by multiplying the likelihood of risk by it's potential impact, there is certainly enough at play here to justify the US government putting a couple agents on a search for a week to figure out who this guy is/was, and who now controls all of those apparently-lost coins.
This used to be a non-serious question. But now we've got presidential candidates calling for national debt ceilings that will result in a default on US debt, and therefore crash the US dollar. Bitcoin's getting integrated into every payment app as if these companies are readying for an eventual modern equivalent of a run on the banks. Except with everyone moving their money to crypto instead of getting 'real dollars' to stuff into their mattresses.
There's a 99.99%+ likelihood that Satoshi just.. lost his wallet one day, or died, or whatever.
BUT -- assume a 0.01% possibility that there is something else at play with that early-mined bitcoin. Assume the _impact_ of a negative outcome with it will eventually be on the order of entire economies.
If you use common practice to calculate security risk by multiplying the likelihood of risk by it's potential impact, there is certainly enough at play here to justify the US government putting a couple agents on a search for a week to figure out who this guy is/was, and who now controls all of those apparently-lost coins.