Surely Satoshi and the developers are so elite that they above the need for spendable currency.  LOL.  Ninjas right???  Ninjas that live off the land???  Ha.

I think Satoshi maybe attempting to inflate the price by providing support to the market with large buys just below market price and smaller buys up front. On Sat, as everyone was expecting a correction there was too much selling pressure to hold it up and he had to let it slide, possibly the 17,00BTC that people keep talking about was sold by another early adopter and he wasn't willing to absorb it.

I saw a couple of times on the way down there would be multiple $100,0000 buys which would quickly vanish when it was clear that price wasn't going to hold. I just don't see anybody risking that kind of money, unless they have a vested interest in bitcoins success and doesn't have as much to loose.  Satoshi probably can't sell a large volume at the moment, while keeping his anonymity, he needs to wait for the price to increase and then he can sell of less for higher value. It's also his creation and he with out a doubt wants it succeed.

At $10 I think he finally managed to prevent the price falling through the floor and helped it quickly rebound,  confidence is now partially restored as people think we have survived the bubble. He may now on be both sides of the order book trying to peg the price around $20 to provide some semblance of a stable economy (until the next boom). Kind of like a bitcoin guardian angel.

I'm jealous because if I had Satoshi's bitcoins, I would buy this:
 
 http://rinkerboats.com/boats.cfm?model=340
 
It's not too big and gaudy, and goes well at my local lake. 
 
I'm also slightly perturbed at myself that I didn't see bitcoins earlier than a couple weeks ago... normally I'm all over what's "underground" (I know this isn't underground but you know what I mean) and I'm sad that I could be sitting on the small fortune that the early adopters are sitting on, but I missed it *sigh*
 
So now me and my 15 bitcoins are able to buy me another HD 5770 *sigh*

romantic thread ... *sigh*

lets hope Satoshi is romantic, too.

This is probably a pipe dream, but I think it would be cosmically wonderful if a side effect of Bitcoin were the creation of a new generation of billionaires and trillionaires, created not by greed or by inheritance, but by idealism.  I would prefer Satoshi over a lot of the current multi-billionaires we have!  Imagine, Bitcoin a deus ex machina for the miserable state of affairs around the world.

Yeah, probably a pipe dream.

There are absolute limits to wealth.  At the absolute upper max, you could be the "boss" of every person on earth.  There is no way to be wealthier than that, since money is merely a means of compelling others to do things for you.  Now, already, almost all of us are "servants" of, probably, the top 1% or 2% of the world.  And that 1% or 2% got there by bleeding us dry!  I'd rather be Satoshi's servant, if that's what it comes to.

Noah's Ark?

Flug has a point. Satoshi's sandwich acquisition in itself could cause a mass panic. If you are looking at the extremes, having that much coin doesn't help in smoothing out bumps unless you sell some upfront, and I'm sure many are watching for the early blocks like hawks, even if they are in smaller lumps (like 65k or something, which is still major, already). On the other end of the spectrum, Satoshi, whoever he/she may be, does not need to be evil. He could bequeath his wealth to an heir and a few generations later there could be a dynasty of dictators. Or he could be, and the dynasty is planned. Maybe 'Satoshi' is a team of NYC bankers doing the same as they did in 1910, a carefully planned execution of cornering the market before it even exists. We simply don't know.

Then again, supposing Satoshi is a benevolent saint, there is nothing preventing the current elite from simply starting to use Bitcoin too and reestablishing their hegemony. I don't mean buying up real estate on the cheap (or at expense later). Rather, a certain kind of person will do the same kind of thing whatever tools he has at his disposal, and be equally successful at it, because the rest will let them, just as it is now. A turd always floats to the top, regardless. Bitcoin's given technical properties cannot change human nature.

Anyway, it's far more likely no mainstream merchants will ever adopt Bitcoin because of pressure from the established banking system, supported by the occasional FBI raid on anyone falling out of line, starting with the exchanges, perhaps supported by some technical attacks on e.g. the bootstrap IRC channels. I don't believe they will need anything like a 51% attack, but if so, pretty sure some agency can be tasked with putting together the appropriate ASIC farm.

Yes that's my assumption. My original concerns have been answered by the fact that any evil billionaire/state could easily buy up 10% of all bitcoins anyway, so it's a general problem, and Satoshi's holdings of bitcoins are probably the least of our worries.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here but all of that could be factored into the plan as misinformation. And other supporters coming forward etc. The end result will have to speak for itself, but by then of course it could be too late.


That kind of numbers would have to be through an exchange and none of them have the liquidity currently, apart from any limiting rules (at $1000 a day it would take over 100 years).

one can not manipulate the market without a metric crapton of Bitcoin and USD.

to the best of my knowledge, Satoshi is not wealthy in USD - only in Bitcoin.  not that it matters, because:

Satoshi's Bitcoin holdings appear to remain - as a blockchain watcher above pointed out - unspent and un-exchanged.

therefore:  Satoshi has not manipulated the market, for good or ill.

and anyway, in his position, he'd be a fool to sell in the light.  dark sales for cash through a well-trusted intermediary: get cash, keep stability, maintain anonymity...