The Patoshi Pattern: how Satoshi’s self-restraint blueprint could decentralise the future
Bitcoin's origin story contains a fascinating secret that most people don't know about. When Bitcoin launched in 2009, its mysterious creator could have easily claimed most of the first coins for themselves. But they didn't. Instead, they followed an unwritten rule to leave plenty for others. We only discovered this years later by studying Bitcoin's early history.
This isn't just an interesting Bitcoin fact. It shows us how companies, governments, and even apps could be designed to naturally resist greed and power concentration. What could this mean for our future? Could we be able to resist greed and rethink our economy and financial systems? We can hope or we can intentionally design it.
The Bitcoin time capsule
In 2013, researcher Sergio Demian Lerner noticed something unusual about Bitcoin's earliest days. The first miner, probably Satoshi Nakamoto, seemed to be following a pattern that limited how many coins they collected. Satoshi limited their mining power to just 1-2%, leaving 98% of the early Bitcoin supply for future users.
The "Patoshi Pattern" was identified through an analysis of Bitcoin's blockchain by Sergio Demian Lerner. Here are key points about the Patoshi Pattern:
Mining Behavior: The pattern shows a distinct way of mining blocks, characterised by a single miner using multiple instances of the Bitcoin software to mine efficiently while avoiding overlaps between instances.
Purpose: The miner behind the Patoshi Pattern appears to have mined approximately 1 million bitcoins, likely for securing the network rather than personal gain.
Technical Features: The pattern is detectable due to anomalies in the nonce values (a variable used in mining) and timestamps of early Bitcoin blocks.
This matters because Satoshi programmed fairness into Bitcoin from the start. He/they could have dominated everything but chose to step back instead. Those original coins remain untouched to this day, like a $70 billion safety net supporting Bitcoin's system.
Real World Fairness Examples
This idea of building systems with built-in fairness exists beyond Bitcoin. In Spain, there's a company called Mondragon owned entirely by its workers. Their rules say the CEO cannot earn more than 9 times what their lowest-paid employee makes. Compare that to Walmart, where the CEO earns about 933 times more than their average worker. Mondragon has been successful for 70 years following this principle.
In Maine (USA), lobster fishing communities created their own self-governing system. They follow a community rule against catching lobsters during breeding season. They even enforce these rules themselves, sometimes cutting trap lines if someone breaks the agreement. Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize for studying how communities like this successfully manage shared resources without outside regulation.
Wikipedia uses automated programs that reverse edits if too much control concentrates with any single editor. Imagine if social media worked the same way, preventing any single creator from taking over everyone's feeds.
Old Ideas, New Applications
These concepts have deep historical roots. Quaker businesses 300 years ago capped their profits at 5% and put any extra money into community projects. The Venetian Republic used an incredibly complex lottery system to choose leaders so no single family could manipulate the process. Bhutan measures national success not just through money but by looking at environmental health, cultural preservation, and community wellbeing (GNH - Gross National Happiness)
Modern Examples
Today, more organisations are trying these principles. Patagonia gives 1% of all sales to environmental causes whether they're profitable or not. A stock photo website called Stocksy United returns 90% of profits directly to the photographers instead of executives. New Right to Repair laws are pushing companies like Apple to let customers fix their devices instead of forcing them to buy new ones.
The problem with endless growth
Our current economic system expects constant growth, which creates serious problems. Companies must grow every quarter, people feel pressure to earn more each year, and social media demands more followers, more engagement, more content.
Growth mindset is a good thing, but endless growth has real consequences for people. About 76% of workers report experiencing burnout at some point, with 28% saying they're currently burned out. Among young people who use social media heavily, rates of anxiety and depression have doubled in many countries over the past decade.
The constant pressure to grow also creates barriers for newcomers. When a few giant companies dominate an industry, it becomes nearly impossible for new businesses to compete. For example, the cost to start a retail business has increased about 300% in the last 20 years, mostly because you need expensive technology just to keep up with the big players.
A different future is possible(?)
What if we designed our systems differently? We might create social media platforms with built-in limits that prevent addictive algorithms from targeting users. Energy systems could let neighbourhoods share solar power directly without big utility companies taking huge cuts. AI systems could have safeguards ensuring no single company controls all the world's smart technology.
This approach faces challenges. Big corporations will resist such changes. Our culture celebrates growth and equates bigger with better. But as Satoshi showed us, sometimes the strongest systems are those designed with built-in limits on power.
The bigger picture
Satoshi's greatest achievement wasn't Bitcoin itself. It was showing that we can build rules into systems that protect them from human greed. We're already seeing communities, schools, and apps experimenting with this idea. The next step is treating fairness as something we can design for, not just hope for.
If a mystery programmer could hide an anti-greed rule in money itself, imagine what we could build if we tried this approach in other parts of society. We could create systems that value sustainability and wellbeing over endless growth, where success isn't measured by constant expansion but by how well we take care of each other and our planet.