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The Patoshi pattern
The Patoshi pattern is a statistical fingerprint in early Bitcoin blocks that lets researchers attribute about 22,000 blocks and ≈ 1.1 million BTC to a single miner active from January 2009 to May 2010 — almost certainly Satoshi Nakamoto. It is the basis of every mainstream estimate of Satoshi's net worth.
1Discovery
In 2013 Sergio Demian Lerner, a security researcher, noticed that the ExtraNonce field in early coinbase transactions did not behave randomly. For one miner it increased steadily and reset at regular intervals, forming slanted lines when plotted against block height. He named the miner "Patoshi."[1]
2How the pattern works
Later analysis found further regularities: Patoshi blocks used a restricted range of the nonce's least-significant byte, and the miner appeared to throttle its own hash rate, steadily reducing its share as other miners joined. Together these features allow attribution of individual blocks with reasonable confidence.
3The numbers
| Measure | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Blocks attributed | ≈ 22,000 |
| BTC mined (50 per block) | ≈ 1,100,000 |
| Active period | Jan 2009 – May 2010 |
| Coins spent | ≈ none |
| Plausible range (all researchers) | 600,000 – 1,100,000 BTC |
| Value of 1.1M BTC today | $92.4 billion |
4Limitations
- Attribution, not proof. No Patoshi block has been cryptographically linked to the Satoshi identity by a signed message.
- Threshold choices. Stricter criteria exclude borderline blocks and give lower totals.
- Not necessarily one person. "Satoshi" could have been a small group operating one mining setup.
Despite these caveats, the Patoshi analysis is the most widely used and reproducible method available, and it is the one this site uses for its central estimate.
5Sources
- Lerner, S. D. (2013). The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto; and follow-up posts on bitslog.com.