Recently, wallets associated with early Bitcoin miners—who received their rewards shortly after the blockchain’s inception by the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto—have begun to move their BTC.
On September 20, five miner wallets that were awarded 50 Bitcoin (BTC) each as block rewards back in 2009 initiated transactions. Blockchain records reveal that one wallet collected its mining reward on January 29, 2009, while three others received their rewards on January 31, 2009. The final wallet in this group received a block reward on February 2, 2009.
One of the Bitcoin wallets seen moving mined BTC. Source: Blockchain.com
The Bitcoin blockchain officially launched on January 3, 2009, when Nakamoto mined the genesis block, embedding a message that referred to a headline from The Times newspaper in the UK. By January 9, 2009, Nakamoto had outlined the fundamental aspects of the protocol, including how to mine and transfer coins.
Considering that the BTC was mined only weeks after the blockchain went live, it is likely that these wallets belonged to individuals who were present at the very start of Bitcoin’s journey.
From virtually worthless to $15.9 million
When the 250 BTC in these wallets were initially mined, their value was negligible. However, Bitcoin reached the milestone of $1 in 2011 on the now-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox. Shortly after, Nakamoto departed from the crypto realm, expressing a desire to pursue new ventures.
Bitcoin’s price movements in the last seven days. Source: CoinGecko
Fast forward to 2024, and the value of those tokens has soared to approximately $15.9 million, with BTC trading around $63,000 per token, according to CoinGecko.
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Crypto community reacts to BTC movements
As news of the BTC movement surfaced, members of the cryptocurrency community began speculating about the identity of the individuals behind the transactions. One user on X humorously suggested that someone might have “found their old hard drive” and hit the jackpot, while another joked that it could be someone who had been in a “coma” and suddenly awoke as a millionaire.
Source: kaymyg
Additionally, some users speculate that the wallets might belong to Nakamoto or to Hal Finney, an American software developer and one of Bitcoin’s earliest proponents. The first-ever Bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009, when Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Finney.
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