Bitcoin Soars past $400; the Satoshi Search Effect?
The price of Bitcoin saw plenty of upward activity late last night UTC, with a surge that saw a $20 leap in the minutes leading up to midnight.
The Bitstamp Price Index scaled a new high since $500 figure struck on November 4th to ring in a figure of $422.88. At the time of publishing, Bitcoin price stood at $421.50.
The price swell started with Bitcoin trading at $395.15 at 11:08 PM UTC before seeing a spike of over $21 to scale $416.23 at 11: 57 PM UTC. The most comprehensive movement came between 11: 15 PM UTC and 11: 34 UTC, a 24-minute window that saw bitcoin price increase from $395.24 to $408.81 at 11: 32 PM UTC.
Market experts and analysts point to the obvious Bitcoin story of the day, that of the potential revelation of bitcoin’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Another theory floated around by finance blog Zero Hedge points to an inexplicable drop of the offshore Chinese Yuan, just as Bitcoin spiked with increased trading.
The Satoshi Unmasking Effect
The increase in the price of Bitcoin could be attested to the stock of interest put into two news reports by WIRED and Gizmodo , both of whom published stories with extensive evidence about the identity of the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. A 44-year old Australian businessman & entrepreneur Craig Steven Wright and a U.S. forensic researcher, Dave Kleiman who is deceased, are seen as the inventors of bitcoin, according to both publications.
Also read: Reports: An Australian Entrepreneur Might Be Satoshi Nakamoto
The investigation by WIRED shows –among other evidence—a PDF authored by Kleiman who agreed to take control of a trust fund named the “Tulip Trust.” This trust contains 1.1 million bitcoins, a trove that is unique in its size and can be readily seen on bitcoin’s blockchain. As WIRED notes, the large pile of Bitcoins is widely attributed to the person(s) known as Satoshi Nakamoto, who would have had the means to mine a large number of bitcoins at the earliest stages of its evolution. The unmasking of Bitcoin’s creator, even if it were a hoax, is likely to have had an effect on the price of bitcoin.
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Featured image from Shutterstock.
