UPDATE: The address of note was only part of the Kleiman Wright Litigation as part of a large grouping that was later deemed not to be owned by Satoshi Nakamoto. In all likelihood, the address is the poperty of an entity not associated with Wright, Kleiman, or any entity using the Nakamoto Alias. We will provide updates as we receive them.
Did Satoshi Nakamoto transfer Bitcoin for the first time in 11 years? That’s the big question today – did Satoshi Nakamoto transfer Bitcoin? The transfer occurred from an 11 year old wallet address that moved the entirety of its funds to an untraceable chain.
The last time that the wallet was active was February 2009 – just one month after the creation of Bitcoin.
The wallet address is 17XiVVooLcdCUCMf9s4t4jTExacxwFS5uh and the entirety of its 50 BTC balance was sent to two different wallets. It is difficult to ascertain where the funds have gone since the BTC was split into dozens of pieces across a complex chain of outputs, but we do know where at least 40BTC are – it’s currently inactive in what appears to be a change address.
In February of 2009, only three people knew about Bitcoin at the time – Satoshi, Hal Finney, and Martti Malmi.
Theories on the possible owners include Finney’s wife and Malmi, but Satoshi is also a candidate as well. The complex chain of transactions suggests that the signer is attempting to conceal the destination of the funds.
It is also possible, theoretically, that an external actor brute-forced the private key to this wallet – unlikely, but theoretically possible.
Here’s what our own Kurt Wuckert Jr. has to say.
Kurt on Did Satoshi Nakamoto Transfers Bitcoin
“We don’t have all the details, but the address from which this was spent has been claimed by Craig Wright under oath in federal court. He has previously stated that he would begin rolling iceberg sell orders of BTC some time in 2020, so this could be the beginning of something wild. I predict that the BTC hedge fund pumpers (Pomp, Novograts: I’m looking at you!) will start explaining why Satoshi doesn’t matter within the day, and there will be talks of permanently freezing Satoshi’s wallets to stop the bloodbath. Very curious to see how this plays out.”
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