Someone sent $1.2 million of bitcoin to the Genesis wallet mined by Satoshi Nakamoto

An unknown bitcoin user sent 26.9 BTC -0.48% , worth $1.17 million, to the network’s Genesis wallet — the first wallet ever created on the Bitcoin network — funds that they’re unlikely to ever get back.

The transaction took place on January 5 at 1.52 ET. The bitcoin was sent from this wallet , which is now empty, to the Genesis wallet. The fee for the transaction was $100, far above average.

The wallet was originally funded in a complex transaction that involved funds moving from three wallets to 12 other wallets. The majority of the funds came from a wallet labeled as belonging to Binance on blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence.

"Either Satoshi woke up, bought 27 bitcoin from Binance, and deposited into their wallet, or someone just burned a million dollars," said Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, on X .

What is the Genesis wallet?

The Genesis wallet is the first wallet ever created on the Bitcoin network. It was created by the pseudonymous entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto, who created the Bitcoin network. Nakamoto also likely mined a high number of other blocks in the network’s early days but it’s unclear exactly how many.

While theoretically, Nakamoto could still be holding onto their private keys to access these wallets and could move or return the funds, the general consensus is that this would be unlikely to happen. This is because funds from wallets associated with Nakamoto, including funds held in the Genesis block, have not moved since Nakamoto’s disappearance in Dec. 2010.

When Nakamoto disappeared, the Genesis wallet only contained the 50 bitcoin that was mined when it was created. Over time, more funds were sent to the wallet and its balance rose to 72 bitcoin in late 2023. With the latest transaction, the current balance is now 99.67 bitcoin, worth $4.3 million.

This is a drop in the bucket for Nakamoto though. Estimates are that they control as much as 1.1 million bitcoin, currently worth $47 billion — on paper, that is.