Bitcoin miner wallets reactivate after 15 years — Could this be Satoshi?

Recently, several dormant wallets tied to early Bitcoin miners, who earned their BTC rewards shortly after the blockchain’s launch by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, have shown signs of activity.

On September 20, five different wallets, each holding 50 BTC that were mined as block rewards in 2009, moved their funds. Blockchain records reveal that one of these wallets received its reward on January 29, 2009, while three others mined their blocks on January 31, 2009. The final wallet collected its reward on February 2, 2009.

The Bitcoin network was launched on January 3, 2009, when Nakamoto mined the famous genesis block, embedding a reference to a headline from The Times in the UK. A few days later, on January 9, Nakamoto published a guide detailing the protocol’s fundamentals, including mining and coin transfers.

Given the timing of these rewards, it’s highly likely that these wallets belong to individuals who were part of the Bitcoin project from its very early days.

Mined Bitcoin goes from $0 to $15.9 million

Back in 2009, the 250 BTC held in these wallets had little or no monetary value. It wasn’t until 2011, when Bitcoin reached $1 on the now-defunct Mt. Gox exchange, that these coins began to be worth something. That same year, Nakamoto exited the public sphere, indicating he was moving on to other endeavors.

Fast forward to 2024, and those once-worthless tokens now carry significant value. With Bitcoin trading around $63,000 per coin, the total worth of the 250 BTC is approximately $15.9 million, based on data from CoinGecko.

Crypto community reacts to BTC movements

As the movements of these Bitcoins were noted, members of the crypto community quickly began speculating about who could be behind them. One user on X (formerly Twitter) joked that someone might have “rediscovered an old hard drive” and stumbled into a fortune. Another user humorously speculated that it could be someone who “woke up from a coma” only to find themselves a millionaire.

Others suggest more intriguing theories, proposing that these wallets could belong to either Satoshi Nakamoto or Hal Finney, a prominent early Bitcoin adopter. The first-ever Bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009, when Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Finney, fueling further speculation about the identity of those controlling these early wallets.

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