Satoshi Bitcoin (BTC) Wallet Mystery: $1.19 Million Transaction Landed

Bitcoiners are guessing whether the transfer was a costly mistake, an attempt to trigger a new wave of hype around the Bitcoin ETF approval in the U.S. or a donation from some altruist. At the same time, the identity of the sender is yet to be disclosed.

Satoshi Nakamoto wallet address receives $1.19 million: What is known

Today, in early morning hours, Crypto Twitter started discussing an eye-watering $1,191,134 transaction someone sent to the wallet that stores the 50 BTC block reward for the first Bitcoin block ever mined in 2009. Most commonly, this ancient address is known as the "Satoshi Nakamoto wallet."

The transaction was authorized yesterday, Jan. 5, 2024, at about 7 pm UTC. It is interesting that 50 minutes before transferring to the Satoshi Nakamoto wallet, the mysterious sender withdrew all that amount of orange coins (almost 27 BTC) from the Binance (BNB) exchange.

The wallet activity history only displays these two transactions. Since Binance (BNB) has stringent KYC procedures, at least its compliance unit knows the person who sent almost $1.2 million to Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet.

Typically, transactions to or from Satoshi-era wallets are interpreted as signals of volatility spikes coming. As covered by U.Today previously, some wallets of early Bitcoiners (BTC) were activated before the Terra/Luna collapse.

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Also, some Bitcoin (BTC) holder from early 2010s managed to sell his stake close to the current Bitcoin (BTC) all-time high in November 2021 with an almost 2,300x profit.

However, numerous "ancient" wallets were caught transacting in regular days without price jumps.

Who is mysterious Satoshi counterparty?

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts on social media are trying to explain this unusual transaction. Three theories are discussed by Bitcoiners on X most frequently.

First, this transaction can be a homage to the Bitcoin (BTC) inventor: It happened two days after the 15th anniversary of the Bitcoin (BTC) mainnet.

Then, someone could have sent this huge sum of money by mistake. Also, this can be yet another attempt to provoke euphoria in anticipation of the Bitcoin (BTC) ETF approval by the U.S. SEC.