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- Coinbase revealed that its documents were made public via a direct listing on Thursday.
- In the file, the trading platform cites the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto as a potential risk factor.
- The creator’s bitcoin cache could wreak havoc on the market if Nakamoto sold his collection.
- Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.
Coinbase revealed documents to be released to the Nasdaq stock exchange via a direct listing on Thursday.
In the filing, the digital trading platform listed Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto as a potential risk factor. Coinbase cites the identification of Nakamoto – the pseudonym used by the individual or group of people who created Bitcoin – as a potential risk to the platform.
If the identity of the creator of bitcoin were revealed, it could lead to a deterioration in bitcoin prices, according to the filing.
The deposit also referred to Nakamoto’s personal bitcoin stash, totaling over one million. In February, a bitcoin was worth around $ 50,000.
Nakamoto could negatively impact Coinbase, the company said, and destabilize the entire crypto market if the creator decides to transfer his bitcoins, which are currently valued at over $ 30 billion.
Nakamoto was the first person to mine bitcoin and his stake in digital currency accounts for almost 5% of the entire bitcoin market, as there are only 21 million bitcoins that can be mined.
Bitcoin’s value has largely been driven by its deflationary tendencies. If 1.1 million bitcoins were put on the market, the price of digital currency would almost surely drop.
Likewise, bitcoin has been praised for the decentralized nature of trading on the platform. Money is not indebted to any institution or person. If Nakamoto were unmasked, it would place the trading platform under a single entity, potentially discouraging traders who bought the currency for its decentralization.
Coinbase’s success is largely linked to the rise of Bitcoin
In a symbolic nod to the creator of bitcoin, Coinbase listed Nakamoto as one of the recipients of its public deposit.
Coinbase – valued at over $ 100 billion – can attribute much of its success to bitcoin and its creator who developed the currency as the first decentralized digital currency in 2009.
Over the years since, bitcoin has largely dominated the cryptocurrency world, increasing by over 400% in the past year alone to easily remain the largest digital coin by market cap.
Coinbase is poised to continue to benefit from the rise of bitcoin. The trading platform is the largest in the United States and has over 20 million users.
Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong refers to the invention of bitcoin in his letter which is included in the public repository.
“When I first read the Bitcoin white paper in 2010, I realized that this IT breakthrough could be the key to unlocking this vision for the future,” Armstrong said. “Cryptocurrency could provide anyone with the fundamentals of economic freedom: property rights, healthy money, free trade, and the ability to work as and where they want.”
Nakamoto’s name first gained public attention after the white paper was released. The document describes the principles of a decentralized peer-to-peer digital payment system. In 2011, the creator reportedly left the company, but remained a figure of public interest.
There has been a lot of speculation over the years about who the creator is. Names such as bitcoin developer Nick Szabo, entrepreneur Craig Wright, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have been dropped as potential creators of the currency.
While it is not known whether Nakamoto will ever choose to transfer his bitcoin cache, it seems unlikely that the creator will ever reveal his true identity.
By maintaining anonymity, Nakamoto could potentially avoid adverse legal consequences. The untraceable nature of bitcoin has also led to its use for illegal goods and services on the dark web. In January, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for more restrictions on digital currencies like bitcoin, due to their use in illegal financing.
The revelation would also violate one of the founding principles of Bitcoin that was described in the white paper. If a creator were unmasked, it would pose a threat to the decentralized nature of currency – a principle that Nakamoto has put at the center of his plans for bitcoin.
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