A BTC transaction mined just one month after the cryptocurrency’s creation has sparked questions about whether the founder has returned.
Some Bitcoin mined in 2009 was just moved, prompting speculation that the elusive founder might be active again.
The original wallet held coins mined in block number 3654, which was mined only about one month after Bitcoin first launched.
Blockchain watcher @whale_alert on Twitter detected the transfer. Of the 50 BTC that were mined in that block during Bitcoin’s first month, 40 BTC were included in the transaction.
“40 BTC ($391,055) transferred from a possible Satoshi wallet (inactive since 2009) to an unknown wallet,” the tweet read.
The remaining 10 BTC were moved to a different digital wallet.
Crypto user Antoine Le Calvez noted in a tweet that this is the first time coins from early 2009 have been spent since August 2017.
Little is known about Satoshi Nakamoto, the name credited with creating Bitcoin. Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin white paper and developed the original reference implementation of the cryptocurrency. He also created the first blockchain database according to the Bitcoin protocol and recorded the very first Bitcoin transaction.
It is unclear whether Satoshi Nakamoto is a real name or a pseudonym, or whether Nakamoto represents a single person. Some believe the name may have been shared by a group of people working on Bitcoin at the time.
While speculation is intense, proving that Nakamoto was responsible for this transfer may be impossible. There is no direct evidence tying the movement of funds to the mysterious founder.
The most likely explanation is that one of Bitcoin’s earliest users decided to move funds they had held inactive for years. If that user has continuously controlled the relevant private keys, those coins could now be worth roughly $500,000 in BTC.
It’s also worth remembering that Bitcoin’s early community was very small, with only a handful of people actively maintaining the project: Hal Finney, Martti Malmi and Satoshi Nakamoto himself.
Other theories suggest the funds could have been moved under duress or by someone else who gained access to the keys, but there is currently no evidence to confirm such scenarios.
Until more information becomes available, the transfer remains an intriguing reminder of Bitcoin’s origins and the enduring mystery surrounding its creator.