An unidentified Bitcoin user transferred 26.9 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $1.17 million to the genesis wallet — the first ever wallet on the Bitcoin network set up by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin transaction occurred on Jan. 5 at 1:52 am Eastern Time. The amount was sent from an emptied wallet to the genesis wallet, accompanied by a transaction fee of $100, notably higher than the average.
The wallet’s initial funding involved moving funds from three wallets to 12 others. Most of the funds originated from a wallet associated with Binance on Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain analytics platform.
Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the transaction is either Nakamoto waking up and depositing BTC from Binance or someone burned over $1 million.
Grogan also suggested that the anonymous transfer could be some weird spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund marketing scheme.
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No movement of funds from Nakamoto-associated wallets, including the genesis wallet, has occurred since Nakamoto disappeared in December 2010. Nakamoto could still retain the private keys for these wallets and control the funds.
The genesis wallet initially held the 50 mined Bitcoin when Nakamoto vanished. On Bitcoin’s 14th birthday, Bitcoin users from around the world celebrated in various ways, with some opting to send BTC to the address containing the rewards for mining its genesis block. The gifts increased the wallet’s balance to 72 Bitcoin by late 2023.
The recent transaction raised the current balance to 99.67 Bitcoin, valued at roughly $4.3 million.
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