First Bitcoin Wallet Receives Over $1M from Mysterious Sender
08 Jan, 2024 ● Crypto News
An unknown Bitcoin user has made a transfer of 26.9 Bitcoin, equivalent to $1.17 million, to the genesis wallet, which is the very first wallet established on the Bitcoin network by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
This Bitcoin transaction took place on January 5th at 1:52 am Eastern Time.
The funds were sent from an emptied wallet to the genesis wallet, and it came with a transaction fee of $100, notably higher than the average fees.
The initial funding of this wallet involved moving funds from three different wallets into 12 others.
The majority of the funds came from a wallet associated with Binance, as reported on Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain analytics platform.
Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, shared on X (formerly Twitter) that this transaction could either signify Nakamoto reemerging and transferring BTC from Binance or someone choosing to burn over $1 million.
Grogan also speculated that this anonymous transfer might be some unconventional promotion or marketing scheme for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
Since Nakamoto's disappearance in December 2010, there has been no activity or movement of funds from wallets connected to Nakamoto, including the genesis wallet.
It's possible that Nakamoto still holds the private keys for these wallets, retaining control over the funds.
Initially, the genesis wallet held the 50 Bitcoin mined at the time when Nakamoto vanished.
On the 14th anniversary of Bitcoin, users worldwide celebrated in various ways, with some choosing to send BTC to the address containing the rewards for mining the genesis block.
These contributions increased the wallet's balance to 72 Bitcoin by late 2023.
The recent transaction has now elevated the current balance of the genesis wallet to 99.67 Bitcoin, which is approximately valued at $4.3 million.
Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoins-first-wallet-sees-1-17-m-in-surprise-transaction
https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/address/bc1q9z82prqdknpv4ku3haargeu7c0h67yrpree6v2
https://twitter.com/jconorgrogan/status/1743445047033409598?s
