A significant amount of bitcoin acquired by mining during the early stages of the network was moved earlier this week, joining the rare instances of “Satoshi-era” bitcoin being transferred.
Over 1,000 bitcoins from an early miner were moved to trading desks and custodian services on December 4, on-chain data firm CryptoQuant told CoinDesk in a Thursday report. These tokens were previously moved thirteen years ago, between August and November 2010, and were mined from block rewards at an estimated total cost of $100.
These bitcoin holdings have a market value of $40 million at current prices. The Satoshi era commonly refers to the period when bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was active on online forums from late 2009 to 2011.
“We speculate that this early miner sold the 1,000 bitcoins and sent them to an OTC or custodian service,” CryptoQuant analysts told CoinDesk in a note. “Based on the transaction patterns of the receiving address, there is a possibility that the bitcoin was sent to an OTC or custodian service.”
Several “Satoshi-era” bitcoins have been active since the start of 2023. In July, a wallet that had been dormant for 11 years transferred $30 million worth of the asset to other wallets, while in August, another wallet transferred 1,005 BTC to a new address.
Such activity comes amid renewed optimism for bitcoin adoption, as prices have more than doubled since the beginning of the year.
