Time to Declare Satoshi Nakamoto Dead.

"A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution."

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

These were the first words of Satoshi, and not far from his last, for we have not heard from him nor do we yet know who he is: missing for over 11 years. "Satoshi Nakamoto" is the pseudonym of the famous inventor of Bitcoin, publishing his earth shattering technical paper those years ago.

In most jurisdictions, a person missing for that long would be declared diseased.

If he was in hiding, to see what has become of his vision would surely have him resurface, his failure to do so is further proof of his demise:

1. At one point over 50% (the majority) of mining pools were in the hands of 3 or 4 miners based in one country. That country restricted the use of Bitcoin, and the pool domination ended. Could that country have ordered these entities to change the rules of Bitcoin? E.g. issued more? Required identity with each transaction? When comparing the distribution of Bitcoin mining pools, we have seen it compares poorly with financial institution shareholding: while greater democracy has been restored, this was not always and may not always be the case.
2. Bitcoin's long confirmation time of 10 minutes to 24 hours or more means it can't compete with almost any modern payment system. Imagine waiting for the confirmation to complete a purchase in a store. Few people use it as a payment mechanism. Add a $30 fee and SWIFT starts looking good.
3. KYC requirements and statutory reporting, and strict rules around deposits and withdrawals means that at the endpoints, Bitcoin needs to enter and exit from the financial system. Bitcoins for many only have value when exchanged for traditional money. This means for most people the transactions take place through financial institutions.
4. If you are transferring money outside of enpoints, Bitcoin transactions are fully traceable and can be known to the authorities. If Entity A buys bitcoin, and purchases property from Entity B, with Entity B cashing it out, authorities can see this transaction and prosecute to recover any applicable taxes that were evaded.
5. Our old habits of storing value makes us see Bitcoin first and foremost as an asset to keep some of our wealth. This was not Satoshi's primary intention. If held as an asset, and given its rarity, chances of using it as a payment are reduced: it does not support a very high velocity (important for a payment currency).
6. Bitcoin's value as a peer-to-peer system relies on us having non-custodial open source wallets, so we are not trusting any entity. Unfortunately, most wallets are custodial: people would rather trust an entity with their cryptocurrency then negotiate the complex tech themselves. This is a fair decision for many. Second, for those more tech-savvy, who use non-custodial open-source wallets, one survey reported only 3% of these wallets had verifiable open source, where the code could be compiled and deployed from source.
7. Let's not get into mining, and greenhouse gas emissions. Satoshi probably thought of the miner as an individual. As a network, it was one person, one vote. The proof-of-stake vs proof-of-work nuance and other models emerged post Bitcoin. Today most bitcoin holders are not miners, the network is controlled by providers not by the consumers.
8. A bank issuing a custodial wallet is the final irony, the nail in Satoshi's coffin. First, a custodial wallet will not support payments, it is a buy and hold, sell and release investment store. We got to this point because so many unregulated wallets went broke, and those with cryptocurrency lost their savings. So in this proposal the bank holds the key. Makes sense, but defies Satoshi's vision.

Satoshi's work is indeed the work of a genius, and Bitcoin may continue to increase in price, but his original vision has been defeated, and with the last Bitcoins being mined and Satoshi's continued silence, we can only conclude one thing, the master is no more.