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Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Miner Moves Coins for First Time in 15 Years – Decrypt

On-chain data shows that some of the first Bitcoin ever mined is still showing signs of life, more than 15 years after it first entered circulation.

Starting early Friday morning, at least five separate Bitcoin block rewards have been moved to new addresses for the first time since they were mined as part of a new Bitcoin block: A closer look at these transactions shows that some of these rewards were generated as far back as late January 2009, the same month that the Bitcoin network first went live.

for example, One transaction Sent from address on Friday at 2:30 AM 0430aits only previous coins were received in a block reward transaction on January 29, 2009. Another transaction sent at 02:49 on Friday was 04f49mined its first coins on January 30, 2009.

These initial rewards were awarded on blocks 2247 and 2401, respectively. Like other blocks from this era, these blocks contained no transaction activity outside of mining rewards, reflecting how small Bitcoin’s user base was at the time.

In total, the transactions amounted to 250 Bitcoin, or just under $16 million, and despite the proximity of the movements, there is no evidence that all of the wallets were controlled by the same person.

Naturally, some onlookers suspected that the early miner activity was a sign that Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous and missing creator of Bitcoin, was making a mysterious return in 2024. But on-chain analysis suggests that the early blocks involved were not part of the infamous “Patoshi pattern” used to identify blocks mined by a single early miner, who many suspect was Satoshi himself.

“These moves may have been a response to a ZachXBT thread about someone’s private coins being leaked from a Bitcoin Core wallet.” Tweeted Anonymous analyst Pledditor was referring to the recent revelation of a Bitcoin Core wallet user hack that resulted in $230 million worth of BTC being stolen on Friday.

“The owners of these coins may have simply switched to a more secure setting,” he speculated.

In 2009, Bitcoin's block reward was 50 BTC per block, equivalent to $3.1 million at today's prices. Since then, there have been multiple “halving” events that halve the block reward every four years, so miners now receive 3.125 BTC, or roughly $196,000.

Editor: Andrew Hayward

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