Did Satoshi Just Move His Coins for the First Time in 11 Years?

A Bitcoin (BTC) address that collected 50 BTC from a mining reward has just shown the first sign of activity since February 2009 — just one month after the creation of Bitcoin.

According to data from Blockchair.com, the address 17XiVVooLcdCUCMf9s4t4jTExacxwFS5uh has moved the entirety of its 50 BTC mining reward to two different wallets.

Source: Blockchair.com

Of this, 40 BTC is laying inactive on what appears to be a change address. The remaining 10 BTC has been sent to a multisig address, as evidenced by its starting number.

The chain of transactions becomes more difficult to track from here, as the BTC was split into almost dozens of pieces across a complex chain of outputs.

Is this Satoshi?

The original wallet contained a coinbase transaction generating 50 BTC, which was mined on Feb. 9, 2009. 

It is known in the community that Satoshi’s “fortune” is spread between many different wallets that each contains a coinbase transaction.

There are only three people that knew about Bitcoin at the time: Satoshi, the since-deceased Hal Finney and Martti Malmi. 

Theories on the possible owner of these funds include Finney’s wife and Malmi, but Satoshi is a likely candidate as well. The complex chain of transactions suggests that the signer seeks to conceal the destination of the funds.

It is also theoretically possible, but extremely unlikely, that an external actor brute-forced the private key to this wallet.

The story will be updated as more information comes in.