On April 7th and 8th, 2022, approximately five bitcoin block rewards mined in 2009 were spent in a concession of transfers. The last time a 2009 block was spent was 1.10 years ago on May 20, 2020. The 250 bitcoin from the latest 2009 spends sat idle for 12.4 years, and the coins were worth $10.8 million at the time of transfer.
‘Sleeping Bitcoins’ From 2009 Rise From Slumber
This week blockchain parsers caught some fascinating bitcoin spends that stemmed from 2009 coinbase subsidy rewards. Once in a while parsers catch 2011 transfers and on rare occasions, 2010 spends happen as well. But none are as rare as 2009 block rewards, and these blocks become far more interesting because they are much closer to Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The last time a 2009 block reward transfer took place was on May 20, 2020, when someone transferred the coinbase reward from block 3,654.
Then, 687 days later on April 7, 2022, two block rewards from 2009 were suddenly transferred after 12.4 years of dormancy. The first spend took place at 2:25 a.m. (UTC) on April 7, and the coinbase reward initially derived from a block found on November 23, 2009. This block reward transferred was the only one minted that day, while the following four 2009 block reward spends were issued on November 22, 2009. The first transfer of 50 BTC or block reward 27,811 from 2009, was officially confirmed at block height 730,784.
Following that spend, Btcparser.com’s blockchain parsers caught another 2009 block reward transferred at block height 730,787. This particular block reward born on November 22, 2009, was block 27,749. Interestingly, the miner from 12 years ago chose to spend another concession of three block rewards the very next day at block height 730,907. All three of the block rewards were spent in the same block and the 150 BTC transferred originated on November 22, 2009.
Analytics Show Sender Used Little Privacy, Block 3,654 Remains in Dormant Addresses
Blockchair’s privacy tool gives the first transaction a very poor rating of “critical” as the transfer was sent with zero privacy tactics. In fact, all four of the 2009-related transactions had “critical” privacy ratings at zero except for one particular transaction, block reward 27,694. Blockchair’s privacy tool gave that specific transfer an 85 rating and only two privacy vulnerability issues. One issue was that “matched addresses” were identified in the transfer, as the tool says it “identified which of the recipient addresses possibly belong to one or more senders.”
Another interesting thing to note is the owner of the 250 bitcoins in total, did not spend the corresponding bitcoin cash (BCH) or bitcoinsv (BSV) associated with the original addresses. Moreover, the 250 BTC was not split up into a great number of other addresses, as each send saw two recipients each. This was similar to the block spend in May 2020, when the reward from block 3,654 was only sent to two recipients. The 50 BTC spent that day currently remains in dormant addresses and has not moved since.
What do you think about the five block rewards spent this week? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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