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Other than by having a non existent digital code become currency and riding on seeing the previously no-value cash become more valuable, how does the Inventors of Bitcoin profit from developing Bitcoin in the first place?

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    Not all inventors are out to profit. Rather, it could be said that Satoshi was out to make money.
    – Colin Dean
    Apr 3, 2013 at 14:17
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    Be honest--how long have you been waiting for the chance to say that? ;)
    – eMansipater
    Apr 18, 2013 at 5:29

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Idealists might argue that Bitcoin was developed to forever change the financial landscape, and would be affronted at the suggestion that Satoshi was out for profit. Skeptics might call the whole thing the most elaborate Ponzi scheme ever envisioned. Realists might suggest that Satoshi, emotionally traumatized by the recent unceremonious departure of his former love interest, was ruminating after a few too many beers late one Saturday night and decided to write some code on a whim.

If he retained the bitcoins he mined early on, he could certainly make quite a bit by cashing them out for fiat. No one would disagree that Bitcoin has made at least a small dent in the current dominant financial system, though whether it will really change the landscape has yet to be seen. And a girlfriend is a small price to pay for what he created.

The truth is, we don't know who Satoshi is, why he created Bitcoin, why he left, or what he sought to gain from it. For all we know, he could be among us today in a different guise. But whatever goals he had, I would suspect we're well on the way to accomplishing them if we haven't done so already.

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    I'd like to add that if Satoshi did touch his wallet at all at this point, we'd probably see a huge volatile price dip for a while. Because this would mean that the wallet holding 9% of all bitcoins in existence is actually in possession of someone, and they are actually alive and active. For the good of bitcoin as a currency, I hope that the private key to the wallet is lost for good
    – Earlz
    Dec 6, 2013 at 21:49
  • Satoshi is likely Nick.
    – Prof. Falken
    Dec 6, 2013 at 23:04
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If they were wise, they would have mined a lot of them in the early times, and could easily sell now some for hard currencies.

Currently there is the Bitcoin Foundation who pays Gavin, who is the head developer.

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Considering the inventor is currently anonymous and seems to have divorced himself from the project since 2011, I would doubt that Nakamoto seeks to gain fame or fortune at this juncture. This said, if the bitcoin becomes a standard currency for the internet, then he is looking at an eight figure wall street job at a hedge fund. Not to mention the likely millions in bitcoins he probably had stashed away.

He deserves every penny. The bitcoin has added enormous utility to the internet and also started a revolution in monetary knowledge. Millions of people are studying how money works for the first time, which will lead to changes in the way current fiat currencies are managed.

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  • Not to mention decentralized technology. The idea of a decentralized system is not something with many obvious advantages, but once studied, has numerous advantages over a centralized structure.
    – bvpx
    Sep 27, 2013 at 21:37

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