Conor Grogan, a senior executive at the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, posted on X earlier this week, stating that after reviewing the wallet addresses of Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, he has captured new information about Nakamoto, including:
- Nakamoto's last on-chain activity was likely in 2014;
- Nakamoto may have used a Canadian Bitcoin exchange;
- The US cryptocurrency exchange Kraken may know Nakamoto's true identity.
Nakamoto's Personal Wealth Surpasses Bill Gates
Additionally, in the investigation, Conor cited Arkham data indicating that the amount of Bitcoin held by Nakamoto can be estimated at approximately 1.096 million, worth about $108 billion. According to this data, Nakamoto's personal wealth has already surpassed that of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Note: At the time of writing, according to Forbes statistics, Bill Gates' current personal wealth is valued at approximately $106.9 billion, ranking 16th globally.
Does Kraken Know Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is?
More intriguing is the question of Nakamoto's true identity. Conor pointed out that the US cryptocurrency exchange Kraken may have information related to Nakamoto's identity. The reason is that Nakamoto's last transaction on a centralized exchange can be traced back to a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange called Cavirtex, which was acquired by Kraken in 2016. Conor speculated:
Since Cavirtex was acquired by Kraken in 2016, if they retained the KYC data of Nakamoto's wallet, they may have information about Nakamoto's true identity.
However, it is worth noting that in the background of 2014, KYC verification was not yet widely implemented in the cryptocurrency industry. Although Kraken began requiring user KYC as early as 2014, it was not until 2017 and 2018 that this requirement was fully implemented. Additionally, the documents at the time of Kraken's acquisition of Cavirtex in 2016 did not indicate that the exchange had a KYC verification requirement for its users.
Therefore, while this is a theoretical possibility, it is not certain whether the exchanges actually possess Nakamoto's KYC data.
Finally, Kraken also responded to Conor's tweet with ambiguous language:
We are all Satoshi Nakamoto.
