On Monday, January 25, 2021, at roughly 2 a.m. (EST), the notorious old school miner from 2010 has spent another consecutive 21 decade-old block rewards with 1,050 bitcoin. This is possibly the same mining entity our newsdesk has been tracking for months. The bitcoin from 2010 moved today follows the exact same pattern as all the block reward strings our team has caught waking up during the last ten months.
For quite some time now, news.Bitcoin.com has been monitoring so-called ‘sleeping bitcoins’ that are starting to wake up after ten years. In 2020, our newsdesk has noticed that a great number of old-school bitcoin spends from 2010 have been transferred in consecutive strings of 20 to 21 block rewards and all of them confirmed in a single block.
On Monday at 2 a.m., which is roughly around the same time frame the other coinbase reward strings have been spent in the past, 21 block rewards were transferred. Our newsdesk caught the action with the help of Btcparser.com’s blockchain parser and visual perspectives from theholyroger.com web portal as well. All of these decade-old bitcoin block rewards held approximately 50 BTC per block and 999.99 BTC ($33.6M) was consolidated into a single address.
As usual, the 999 BTC was again split into multiple fractions and followed the same movements as the previous string spends. The very last time news.Bitcoin.com reported on a large string of block reward spends from 2010, Russian blockchain researcher, Issak Shvarts, told our newsdesk that “these bitcoins are now owned by the crypto exchange Coinbase.”
All of the coins worth over $35 million spent on January 25, 2021, were confirmed at block height 667,558. Moreover, the corresponding bitcoin cash (BCH) block rewards were moved as well on Monday. Similar to all the other past spends, besides the March 11, 2020 transfer, the corresponding bitcoinsv (BSV) has not been touched.
Now interestingly, this pattern all stemmed from 2010 blocks mined in August, September, and October. This is identical to all the past strings of ‘Satoshi era’ bitcoin transfers from 2010 that have been caught in the past. However, as mentioned above, BTC block height 667,558 saw 21 block rewards spent from 2010, and the first spend did not follow the 999 BTC that was possibly transferred to an exchange.
49.49 BTC was transferred to one address and half of a bitcoin was sent to another address, which still sits idle. Moreover, just before the 21 decade-old blocks spent in block 667,558, two inconsistent 2010 blocks were spent at block height 667,534 and 667,538. The first spend was unique because the coinbase block reward was created on December 12, 2010.
December 12, 2010, is special because it was the very last day Satoshi Nakamoto wrote openly to the entire Bitcoin community on the forum bitcointalk.org. The 2010 block spend from December did not see the corresponding BCH or BSV spent. 19.9 BTC and 30 BTC were sent to two addresses and then split into fractions and likely sent to an exchange.
Presently, from our collective research, we believe that the person who has transferred the significant number of strings from 2010 is very likely the same entity. It is always roughly around the same number of 2010 coinbase rewards, all mined during the same months, and all spent ten years later at around the same timeframe during the early morning hours (EST). The entity always methodologically follows the exact same pattern and seems to care less about privacy.
Another possible theory tied to this miner could indicate this individual or group of individuals mined a whole lot of bitcoins in 2010. For instance, if this person is the same entity, they have spent well over 7,000 BTC stemming from 2010 worth over $236 million using today’s exchange rates.
Of course, if the entity spent these coins right away they would have received far less than $236 million for each transfer’s spot price on the day the block rewards were moved. Furthermore, following the recording of all the 2010 block rewards spent in blocks 667,534, 667,538, and 667,558, a single 50 BTC block reward ($1.5M) mined on November 5, 2010, was spent at block height 667,629.
What do you think about today’s 1,000 bitcoin spend from the 2010 block rewards? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.