Cardano Founder Estimates Satoshi’s Bitcoin Mining Costs

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has estimated that the electricity costs incurred by Satoshi Nakamoto, the enigmatic co-founder of Bitcoin, would have been less than $3,700 to mine 1 million BTC.

Hoskinson outlined three scenarios reflecting the potential electricity costs for Nakamoto’s mining activities between 2009 and 2010:

1. Low Mining Difficulty: Bitcoin was mined during a period characterized by very low mining difficulty and nearly no competition, predominantly using CPU mining.
2. Single Rig Scenario: Using a single mining rig averaging 190 watts and operating 75% of the time over 485 days, the estimated cost would be around $191. This represents a minimal setup for an individual miner using a typical consumer PC or server.
3. Patoshi Pattern Scenario: Researcher Sergio Lerner identified the Patoshi pattern, suggesting that a single person (likely Satoshi) employed multiple machines. This more realistic setup raises estimated costs to approximately $575 in the U.S. and nearly $1,000 internationally.
4. Increased Energy Needs: Should Satoshi have needed to enhance competitiveness amid rising mining difficulty, costs could have escalated to about $3,700.

Nakamoto’s true identity remains unknown, yet he is now viewed as one of the wealthiest individuals, recently surpassing Bill Gates, with an estimated net worth approaching $120 billion.

In other developments, Ripple CTO David Schwartz disclosed that he owns 250 Bitcoins, acquired when BTC was trading near $30.