An early Bitcoin miner moved 50 BTC on June 27 after 14 years of leaving the holdings untouched, joining the rare instances where Bitcoin from the Satoshi era has been transferred.
The stash, worth over $3 million, was sent to crypto exchange Binance, analysis tool Lookonchain said in an X post.
BTC Miner Turns $25 BTC To $3 million
Blockchain data shows the miner received 50 Bitcoin as a reward on July 14, 2010, months after the network launched when the token was worth just a few cents on the dollar.
That period is colloquially known as the Satoshi era, referring to the months when Bitcoin’s mysterious and enigmatic creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was active on online forums from late 2009 to 2011.
At the time, the block reward was 50 BTC. The current mining reward per block is just 3.125 BTC following April’s halving event. Bitcoin was trading for $0.05 when the miner received the reward, which means his holdings were valued at $25 BTC. At press time, the alpha cryptocurrency is changing hands at $61,752. This indicates that the miner’s holdings are worth over $3.06 million, demonstrating that his patience has been immensely rewarding.
Speculation Within The Crypto Community
Several Bitcoin wallets from the Satoshi era, albeit quite rare, have been active since the start of 2024. In April, a wallet that had been dormant for 14 years transferred 50 BTC that was earned from mining on April 23, 2010, while in March, another wallet transferred $3.67 million worth of BTC to Coinbase.
Some market observers have already suggested that the latest transfer might be linked to Satoshi. However, he was not the only whale mining BTC during the crypto’s early days.
Other social media commentators observed that there had been a lot of selling in the crypto market in recent days, likely referring to the dumping by the United States government and the German Federal Criminal Police Office. The mass selling, in their opinion, suggests the Bitcoin price has topped and could slump to $50K levels.
