Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Miner Scores $3.5M From Decade-Old Stash: 'What A Legend'

A long-time Bitcoin BTC/USD miner just cashed in on what might be considered a crypto treasure trove. On the 7th of November, a stash of 100 bitcoins that dated back to the currency’s origins—the fabled Satoshi era—was transferred for the first time in thirteen years.

What Happened: The anonymous miner partly sold these digital relics, originally mined when Bitcoin was in its infancy and worth barely a dollar in total.

Benjamin Brannan of CryptoQuant, in a LinkedIn post, divulged the historic movement of these coins, indicating that the timing was optimal with Bitcoin floating around the $35,000 mark. Out of the 100 coins, 50 were presumed to have been exchanged, possibly through an exchange platform or over-the-counter (OTC) service.  “What a legend," said Brannan.

Why It Matters: Mining Bitcoin in the early stages was achievable with the simplest computer setups, often just a CPU sufficed—an era vastly different from today’s complex and resource-intensive mining operations. Many miners from the era of Satoshi Nakamoto, like the original creator, who is believed to have over 1.12 million tokens, were hobbyists, computer scientists, and university students.

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It’s worth noting that the progression of mining technology from CPUs to GPUs, which offer a much more efficient way to mine, was first leveraged by pioneers like Laszlo Hanyecz, who famously traded 10,000 BTC for two pizzas.

Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $37,469, up 5.33% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo by Gaston Cerliani on Shutterstock

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