Bitcoin mining wallets wake up after 15 years – is this Satoshi?
The wallets of former Bitcoin miners who received coins as rewards shortly after the blockchain was launched by its anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, were recently spotted moving their BTC.
On September 20, 2009, five mining wallets that each received 50 Bitcoin (BTC) as a block reward began moving their funds. Blockchain data shows that one wallet received the mining reward on January 29, 2009, while three received the mining reward on January 31, 2009. The last wallet received a block reward on February 2, 2009.
One of the Bitcoin wallets that have seen Miner BTC move. Source: Blockchain.com
The Bitcoin blockchain went live on January 3, 2009, when Nakamoto posted a message referring to an article published in The Times newspaper in the United Kingdom, releasing the genesis block. On January 9, 2009, the creator of Bitcoin explained the basics of the protocol, how to mine and send coins.
Since BTC was buried only weeks after the launch of the Bitcoin blockchain, the wallets may have been people who discovered it at its inception.
Mining Bitcoin goes from $0 to $15.9 million
When the 250 BTC in the wallet was first mined, it wasn't worth much at all. However, Bitcoin reached $1 in 2011 on the now-defunct crypto exchange Mt Gox, and months later Nakamoto announced his intention to leave the crypto space and move on to other projects.
Bitcoin price movements in the last seven days. Source: CoinGecko
Fast forward to 2024, the tokens are now worth about $15.9 million, and BTC trades at roughly $63,000 per token, according to CoinGecko.
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Crypto community reacts to BTC activities
When BTC movements were pointed out, community members guessed who was moving the tokens. One X user suggested that a person “found an old hard drive” saw Bitcoin and could win the lottery, while another user suggested that it could be a person who was in a “coma” and woke up a millionaire.
Source: Kaimig
Meanwhile, some users speculate that the wallets may belong to Nakamoto or American software developer Hal Finney. The world's first Bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009, when the creator of Bitcoin sent 10 BTC to Finney, one of the early adopters of Bitcoin.
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