According to recent studies, it’s probable that Satoshi Nakamoto orchestrated a 51% mining attack on the network during its inaugural year. An extensive analysis of 2009 blocks mined by Patoshi—an alias for a prolific miner who incorporated a non-standard usage of ExtraNonce in coinbase transaction data—indicates a strong possibility that this miner leveraged hash power to reorganize Bitcoin’s blockchain.
In simpler terms, as Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo articulated, during the times when Patoshi took breaks from mining, the computer restart was “so powerful that the miner [Patoshi] simply overwrote blocks found by other miners in their [Patoshi’s] absence.” A 51% attack represents exactly that — obtaining 51% control of the Bitcoin network, gauged by hash rate, to overpower other miners and reclaim control over new transaction confirmations.
Patoshi—a blend of ‘pattern’ and ‘Satoshi’—was actively mining in 2009 when it was very likely that Satoshi Nakamoto was the sole individual connected to the network. This has prompted many to infer that Patoshi and Satoshi could be the same entity.
A more comprehensive exploration by Wicked Smart Bitcoin this week, which builds on Lerner’s analysis, also suggests that Patoshi likely executed a 51% mining attack during 2009.
The Patoshi Pattern was originally unveiled by @SDLerner and has been further examined by @lopp and others. It stands as one of the most captivating datasets in the entire history of #Bitcoin, representing one of the rare instances where Satoshi left some clues for us to uncover. pic.twitter.com/6RGMNdhDkY— Wicked (@w_s_bitcoin) October 1, 2024
The highlighted yellow dotted lines represent Patoshi’s blocks.
As Bitcoin has always operated on a proof-of-work (PoW) basis, whichever miner exerts the most effort earns the privilege to mint coinbase rewards and append transactions to the ledger. During Patoshi’s mining hiatuses, no other miner accomplished sufficient hashing work to bar their return and reclaiming of dominance.
Satoshi’s ‘51% attack’ was nominally an attack only
It’s crucial to recognize that bitcoins held no value in 2009, making the attack a stress test rather than a pursuit of financial gain. While the actions of Patoshi, who was presumably Satoshi, fulfill the criteria of a ‘51% attack,’ this terminology poorly describes what transpired. Because bitcoins had no real financial worth at that time, the conduct appeared to be aimed at research or was unintentional.
In fact, Satoshi was among the few individuals connected to the Bitcoin network in early 2009 during these blockchain reorganizations. Besides other research endeavors, Satoshi also seemed to assess the Bitcoin network’s Difficulty Adjustment by varying hash power inputs in 2010.
All of these undertakings were conducted when bitcoins were essentially free. To clarify, miners could obtain coinbase rewards for just a few cents worth of electricity, and Martti Malmi distributed 30,000 bitcoins through a free website ‘faucet’ throughout 2010.
Read more: High severity bug in Bitcoin Core affects 17% of full nodes
So, while it might be accurate to assert that Satoshi executed a 51% attack on Bitcoin, it would not have resulted in any immediate financial profit. To this day, Satoshi has sold almost none of the 1.1 million coins mined during the first two years of the currency’s lifecycle.
As Wicked Smart Bitcoin recapped to Protos, “While Satoshi guided Bitcoin through its first year, it appears he might have conducted several real-world stress tests like the reorganizations in May 2009 and deliberately orchestrated downward difficulty adjustments in May 2010.
“None of these actions appeared malevolent but rather aimed at evaluating the integrity and resilience of the system he had created.”
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