🎭 Unmasking Satoshi Nakamoto

What’s going on here?

The British legal system started investigating whether bitcoin’s self-proclaimed inventor is a true marvel or a whizz of a trickster.

What does this mean?

Bitcoin’s original blueprint hit the interwebs back in 2008, with only the pen name Satoshi Nakamoto on its digital cover. That created a mystery for the ages – or at least, the Reddit boards. No thanks to Craig Wright: the Australian computer scientist has long claimed to be the true author of the document, at least partly responsible for creating the OG crypto. He’s even called companies into legal proceedings, taking issue with their use of the technology. So now, concerned that a fraudster could one day make lucrative claims on bitcoin’s future developments, tech experts including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey are calling for the British government to investigate the now British resident Wright’s claim. You’d think that should be simple: the owner of the original access codes is worth some $46 billion. Problem is, you can bet the inventor of an untraceable currency could keep their own accounts well-hidden, too.

Why should I care?

For markets: A moment of weakness.

Bitcoin has fallen 6% since the Securities and Exchange Commission approved spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the crypto. That doesn’t mean hardcore digital investors are dropping out now that the coin is becoming more mainstream, though. More likely, it’s an endorsement of the saying, “buy the rumor, sell the news”. After all, gold also slipped when its first ETF launched in 2006, and it wasn’t long until the metal turned precious again.

The bigger picture: Investors have online options.

Bitcoin’s still down 35% since its peak two years ago. Now, you could blame the banking crises and back-breaking inflation that have shaken industries and markets since then. Thing is, bitcoin was designed to withstand anomalies like that. Investors, then, might just have wandering eyes, putting their cash into artificial intelligence punts instead of crypto ones.

What’s going on here?

Big Tech accountants looked after the millions, and the billions on the balance sheets looked after themselves.

What does this mean?

Big Tech firms are big spenders, with a penchant for flashy, pricey equipment. Mind you, it’s easier to swipe the corporate card when you have a crack team of accountants ready to soften the cost. See, when a business buys a big-ticket item, the depreciation – that’s the value an item loses each year – counts as annual expense. (Just think of a new car: it becomes less valuable as time goes on, meaning you’d recoup less of your investment if you decided to sell it on.) Savvy accountants, though, simply stretch out the lifespan of each machine, making that annual cost easier to swallow. That might sound like a case of collecting spare coins, but everything’s bigger stateside: Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon managed to find a spare $10 billion between them over the last two years through that technique alone.

Why should I care?

For markets: The dossier of truth.

Accountants have a reputation for being reliable, by-the-book, and frankly, a little dull. They break that mold a little when they pull off tricks like thinning out depreciation costs, but that all happens in the profit and loss statement. The cash flow account, a completely separate document, purely records the money that moves in and out of a business. Not even the smartest accountant can change those numbers – and if they do, they’ll swap their desk seat for a jail cell.

The bigger picture: Geek in the sheets.

Plenty of companies would rather show investors their finely tuned profit and loss statements, but Big Tech firms may soon want to hang cash flow accounts on their office walls. There are only so many data centers worth building, see, so when the hefty spending slows down, cash flow will take center stage on their sheets.