One of the first Bitcoin developers, Gavin Andresen, believes that Satoshi Nakamoto could have misjudged the prospects for creating a cryptocurrency.
Andresen first heard about Bitcoin in 2010. He immediately became interested in the idea and soon became the leading curator of the development. In 2013, he "handed over authority" to Vladimir van der Laan, creator of Bitcoin-QT (Bitcoin Core).
Satoshi might turn out to be wrong about this. In ten years BTC could be a niche coin for gold bugs, with about the same transaction volume as today. https://t.co/1bdtJ4eiql
— Gavin Andresen (@gavinandresen) January 25, 2020
Andresen is now casting doubt on one of Nakamoto's assumptions, according to which by 2030, Bitcoin will either have a huge volume of transactions, or no one will use it at all. According to Andresen, a middle option is still possible - and after 10 years, Bitcoin will remain "a niche coin for the supporters of the gold standard with approximately the same transaction volume as it is now."
According to information that is known to the general public, Nakamoto sent his last letter to Andresen on April 26, 2011.
"I wish you wouldn't keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle. Maybe instead make it about the open source project and give more credit to your dev contributors; it helps motivate them,"
he wrote.
The next day, Andresen publicly announced his intention to give a lecture on Bitcoin at the CIA headquarters. Adamant Capital founder Tuur Demeester notes that Satoshi Nakamoto left the project shortly after these events.
In recent years, Andresen has begun supporting other cryptocurrencies. In May 2016, he confirmed on his blog that he believed in the creation of Bitcoin by Craig Wright, after which his access to updating the Bitcoin Core repository on GitHub was denied. Later that same year, Andresen also announced that Ethereum would outgrow Bitcoin over time.