A Bitcoin wallet from the Satoshi era has been awakened: could it be true?

Yesterday, the news that another wallet from the Satoshi era, which was mining Bitcoin in January 2009, had awakened circulated widely on X.

Who published the news, however, did not check on-chain if what they were writing was true, while checking there are doubts about whether it is actually the same wallet. 

The new Bitcoin wallet of the Satoshi era

Yesterday, in fact, the Bitcoin address 3BS5DuKaFskSMN7nC7SiXynMko8mBELMs5 transferred more than 1,200 BTC (more than 77 million dollars) to another address.

Those 1,200 BTC, however, do not appear to have been mined by that wallet in 2009. 

They were instead received in bulk only five days ago. 

It should be remembered that in 2009 the reward for mining a block was 50 BTC, so when an address received Bitcoin from mining, it did so with single transactions of 50 BTC whose origin was the coinbase (i.e., the minting of new Bitcoin).

The other case

This dynamic was very evident instead in a similar case on September 20, when a legacy address that had received 50 BTC on January 29, 2009, transferred them to a new segwit address.

By checking the blockchain, it was clearly visible the receipt of 50 BTC on January 29, 2009, coming from the coinbase. 

Instead, in the case of yesterday, this evidence does not appear. 

The two cases, however, could be connected. That is, the 1,200 BTC moved yesterday could also contain the 50 BTC moved on September 20. 

However, by checking, always on the blockchain, it is discovered that the 50 BTC moved on September 20 are actually still on the address to which they were moved that day. In fact, there are still 50 BTC on that address. 

Therefore, we can state with certainty that the two cases are not connected. 

The origin of the BTC (Bitcoin) mined from the wallet of the Satoshi era

This casts doubt on whether the news published yesterday is true. 

The transaction of 1,200 BTC exists, but there is no evidence that those Bitcoins come directly from the mining of a block carried out in 2009. On the contrary, it is certain that they come from a transaction carried out only five days ago. 

However, going even further back, that is, back to the moment when those 1,200 BTC were created, it is discovered that some were generated in 2009. 

It turns out, however, that since then until today they have changed hands several times. 

Now the point is: were these steps carried out by the same person, or not? 

Because if they were made by the same person, it means that the wallet that moved them yesterday belongs to the same person who mined them in 2009. 

To mine them, in increments of 50 BTC at a time, several addresses were used. In June 2011, 2,000 BTC were sent at once from those different addresses to 1CEq15CvdwHZmkfpWxse1UDGBxLynQepTe. 

So after mining 40 blocks in 2009, earning a total of 2,000 BTC (50 per block), using 40 different addresses, in 2011 that user transferred all 2,000 BTC from the 40 addresses to a new address in one go. 

Real or fake news?

Until that 2011 transaction, it is certain that the person who mined those BTC in 2009 was the one moving them. 

In 2011, however, he moved them three more times, always in bulk, and always to new addresses. 

Since they were moved in bulk, it is reasonable to think that it was always the same person who was reorganizing their wallets. 

From 2011 to 2014 they remained stationary at the address 1CXpbTE6QHxhc5TAzezFtAhqxwt34mhuAS, but only to be moved again in bulk to another one. 

The “problema” arises here.

In fact, in 2014 they were moved from that wallet, but no longer all at once. 775 went to one address, and the other 1,225 to another. At this point, it can no longer be reasonably asserted that the person who received these two transactions is the same person who sent them. 

Therefore, yesterday’s news turns out to be partly true, and partly doubtful. It cannot be stated that it is 100% true. 

Instead, the news from September 20 was definitely true, 100%, because anyone could go and verify it on-chain. 

Also in this case anyone can go and verify on-chain, but what is discovered by doing so is that there are strong doubts about the fact that the person who moved those 1,200 BTC yesterday is the same person who mined them in 2009. 

The other handovers

To all this must be added another detail that only increases the uncertainty. 

After being received in 2014, those 1,225 BTC were moved four more times, all in this month of September 2024, becoming 1,209. 

However, even in this case, they were effectively moved in bulk, so it is likely that these last four transactions were made by the same person. However, there remains a clear break in continuity in 2014 when of the initial 2,000 BTC mined in 2009, 775 were sent to one address and 1,225 to another. 

It should also be remembered that in 2014 Satoshi had already been missing for three years, and that this was the first year post-bubble, and the first real great bear-market of Bitcoin.