Story by
David Canellis
David is a tech journalist who loves old-school adventure games, techno and the Beastie Boys. He's currently on the finance beat. David is a tech journalist who loves old-school adventure games, techno and the Beastie Boys. He's currently on the finance beat.
A chunk of Bitcoin has just moved for the first time since it was mined way back in 2009, causing some to speculate that Satoshi Nakamoto has returned.
The shift was detected by Twitter-based blockchain monitor @whale_alert, which confirmed that the 40 BTC featured in the transaction were mined in the first month of Bitcoin’s existence.
??? 40 #BTC (391,055 USD) transferred from possible #Satoshi owned wallet (dormant since 2009) to unknown wallet
ℹ️ The coins in this transaction were mined in the first month of Bitcoin's existence.
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 20, 2020
Back then, the Bitcoin network was very small, and its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto was one of just a handful of active miners.
Yep, that’s old Bitcoin, but it’s hard to prove this is really Nakamoto
It’s important to note that there’s currently no direct proof linking the mysteriously absent Nakamoto — who some believe still sits on roughly 1 million BTC — to this transaction.
keep in mind it's basically impossible to prove that Satoshi _didn't_ mine these coins, but the best research we have suggests that Satoshi mined a specific set of blocks, of which this is not one. https://t.co/oNRwcNcWa2
— nic carter (@nic__carter) May 20, 2020
Still, it’s certainly cool to see it move at all, considering when it was mined the price of BTC was effectively zero. Whoever controls this cryptocurrency has some very strong hands.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
