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 analyzers captured fascinating bitcoin spending stemming from the 2009 coinbase grant rewards. From time to time, the analyzers detect transfers from 2011 and, on rare occasions, expenses from 2010 also occur. But none are as rare as the block rewards of 2009, and these blocks become much more interesting because they are much closer to the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The last time a 2009 block reward transfer took place was on May 20, 2020, when someone transferred the block 3,654 coinbase reward.
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.
As a result of this outlay, blockchain parsers at Btcparser.com captured another 2009 block reward transferred at a block height of 730,787. This particular block reward born on November 22, 2009 was block 27,749. Interestingly , the 12-year-old miner opted to spend another concession of three block rewards the very next day at a block height of 730,907. The three block rewards were spent in the same block and the 150 BTC transferred began 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 that the owner of the 250 bitcoins in total, did not spend the corresponding bitcoin cash (BCH) or bitcoinsv (BSV) associated with the originating addresses. Additionally, the 250 BTC was not split into a large number of other addresses, as each send saw two recipients each. This was similar to block spending in May 2020, when the block 3,654 reward was only sent to two recipients. The 50 BTC spent that day currently remain in dormant addresses and have not moved since.
