Key Takeaways
- Galaxy Research tracked 100 bitcoins mined in July 2010 that finally moved after more than 16 years.
- The Satoshi-era BTC reportedly gained 108.69 million percent in value, with 90 BTC and 10 BTC sent to separate wallets.
- Bitcoin.com News verified Galaxy’s findings, confirming the 100 BTC remained untouched despite 894 BTC in prior moves.
Satoshi-Era BTC Shifts After 16 Years, With a Massive Gain
“AWAKENED—Satoshi era (16+ years dormant),” Galaxy Research wrote on X on Wednesday afternoon at 2:57 p.m. ET. The team further noted that this holder realized a gain of 108.69 million percent by holding the BTC untouched since 2010. The coins were mined in 2010 on July 13, and they were stored in an old P2PK (Pay-to-Public-Key) address.
At that time, pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto was still mining bitcoin, the network was super young, and BTC had roughly zero value. The 100 BTC was sent to two distinct P2WPKH (Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash) wallets, with one holding 90 BTC and the other holding 10 BTC. Those new P2WPKH wallets are not flagged by any block explorer and remain unknown with no counterparties.
Onchain Records Confirm the 100 BTC From 2010 Had Remained Untouched
In Galaxy Research’s X thread, there’s a great deal of accounts complaining to Galaxy about marking these coins untouched. “Uhm. Not really untouched is it?” one person replied to Galaxy’s thread. The reason people are complaining is because the wallet has been used on several occasions, and it has shifted around 894 BTC in the past.
Galaxy Research responded to the critics. “We maintain a complete ledger of every single UTXO and all their historical movements (about 1.7 terabytes),” Galaxy’s X account wrote. “This address has been somewhat active in the past, but these specific coins have not moved since 2010. We track the coins.”
Bitcoin.com News independently verified the BTC from the transaction using our own analytical tools, confirming Galaxy’s findings that the coins originated from coinbase rewards mined in July 2010. Unlike other batches of BTC that changed hands over the years, these particular mined coins, known as unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), had remained untouched until now.
The owner moved several tranches in 2015, 2017, and 2018, and these transfers caused a lot of confusion on the thread. Galaxy continued to counter the criticism, however, standing firmly behind its findings and clarifying, “As we wrote, UTXOs unmoved since 2010. We track the specific coins with these alerts. The coins were dormant since 2010. Probably a very old miner.”
