Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto

Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto
bits.blogs.nytimes.com

That being said, it's important for two reasons:

1.) the paper gets published tomorrow, which will lead to a round of negative press, regardless of the claims' merit.

2.) More significant: it highlights what I see as an existential threat to the Bitcoin experiment: a.) the poor distribution of early wealth and b.) the possibility that a great percentage of all Bitcoins are currently held by bad actors (criminals, anarchists, use your imagination).

A few things to consider: 1. A list of richest Bitcoin addresses is not a good representation of the concentration of wealth. A single person can have x wallets, just like this Ulbricht character. 2. Bitcoin wealth is often used to reinvest in mining equipment, which furthers one's wealth to a greater extent. Rinse/repeat.

Several of the oldest wallets have been dormant for years, which means that this is not hypothetical -- that wealth has not circulated.

edit made to be clear about "bad actors":

"Bad actors" meaning: unpredictable and possibly having malicious intent.

If Bitcoin becomes a more important part of our daily lives, handling commerce ubiquitously, etc.--a single individual with ~10+% of said Bitcoin has enormous disruptive potential. I'm not referring to what said person could purchase with that wealth, but one's ability to manipulate markets.

This has never been a big issue, as far as the growth in value of the currency. However, I think this kind of uncertainty could freak out potential institutional investors.

Altcoins like Litecoin, PPC, Namecoin, etc - do not suffer as much from this issue because their exposure was far greater than Bitcoin ca. 2009, and the mining competition was greater on the respective debut-dates by several orders of magnitude.

EDIT I am referring to the article not the yet to be published material