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Comment by ghaff

8 days ago

How is it different from all the non-secret billionaires to say nothing of all the people with 100s of millions?

You really dont get it? Because real billionares have the money and you dont.

Journalists just told everyone you are billionare, but you're just average SWE on $120k / year and absolutely no money for hiring small army of guards. Neither your own government agencies keep your back protected like they do for usual high profile people.

Now go find a proof for mafia that you are not in fact have a billion bucks on USD stick.

This has happened in this Satoshi hunt multiple times already. I mean finding that some random crypto related SWE is Satoshi when they are not.

  • > you're just average SWE on $120k / year and absolutely no money for hiring small army of guards

    FWIW, in this instance Adam Back is also a non-secret billionaire, mostly from his public involvement in a number of ventures within the Bitcoin ecosystem. The difference is closer to 1 order of magnitude than the 4 you're proposing.

    • You are right, but this is not the first investigation.

      Also there is massive difference between being rich, or even a super rich and literally hidding $50B under your bedsheet on USB stick.

      No one expects that putting a gun to even a super rich person head will buy you a small country. You can kill a billionare, but you cant extract much value out of it other than $100k on their credit card and $500k watch neither of which you can really sell.

      Havimg keys to $50B on USB stick is different level of danger.

Satoshi is a paper billionaire - he can't use a small fraction of his "wealth" to hire proper security. Simultaneously his "assets" are much more attractive to criminals. Imagine holding a regular billionaire hostage and demanding they give you a billion dollars. They'd probably have to sell 1B worth of stock, then convert it to cash (or crypto), etc. all of that requiring multiple interactions with different people and institutions.

  • Heisting multiple billions worth of crypto would have the same issues, just to a smaller degree. If that much illicit money is on the line, `mJurisdiction` which normally looks the other way might be tempted to investigate and confiscate it for their own benefit.

    They also can't easily sell that amount quickly without repercussions (and without another institution like an exchange).

    You're right, but only to a limited degree.

Even if you put a gun to Bill Gates' head, signing over all his wealth to you would still require a lengthy process, not just handing over some keys.