The creator of Bitcoin is now the 15th richest person in the world.
Satoshi Nakamoto, which is the pseudonym of the mysterious developer or developers of the cryptocurrency, has seen their wealth skyrocket over the past few years.
And according to The Independent, their net worth is now reported to be an estimated $73 billion ‘(£54.2bn), which isn’t too bad, is it?
This comes after it was announced earlier this month that the price of bitcoin hit a new all-time high of above $68,000 (£50,505) after a 300 per cent rise over the last year.
And according to some experts, it looks set to continue in the coming weeks, with one model predicting it could surpass $100,000 (£74,272) before the end of the year.
If it is correct, Nakamoto would break into the top 10 wealthiest people on the planet.
Since Bitcoin launched back in 2009, many have claimed to be Nakamoto, but as yet, the figure’s true identity is yet to be revealed.
The family of David Kleiman launched a legal case against his former business partner, Craig Wright, for control of their shared assets, which includes one million Bitcoins allegedly belonging to Nakamoto.
Nakamoto vanished from message boards and development discussions at the end of 2010. And it was during the asset’s first year of operation that he is said to have collected around one million Bitcoins.
Wright is a 51-year-old Australian programmer living in London who has previously claimed he created Bitcoin.
However, the wider cryptocurrency community has largely rejected this claim.
According to the family of Kleiman, both he and Wright were partners in engineering Bitcoin, which entitles them to half of Nakamoto’s Bitcoins, which are worth over US$30 billion.
Vel Freedman, a lawyer for the family told the Wall Street Journal: “We believe the evidence will show there was a partnership to create and mine over one million Bitcoin.”
Wright is arguing that he alone is the creator of Bitcoin, which would remove the Kleiman family’s claim to the fortune.
“We believe the court will find there’s nothing to indicate or record that they were in a partnership,” Andrés Rivero, a lawyer for Wright told the WSJ.
Many experts believe the code behind the asset is too sophisticated for it to have come from one person, unless that person was a genius, while others who have spoken with Nakamoto over the years believe them to be of non-Japanese descent.
If true, this would go against earlier claims that Nakamoto was in fact a 37-year-old male who lived in Japan.
