A group of 100.02 Bitcoin mined in July 2010 has moved for the first time in 16 years, putting a long-dormant Satoshi-era holding back on the blockchain’s public ledger.
The coins changed addresses on October 7 in a transaction worth about $8.3 million at the time, based on a Bitcoin price of roughly $83,000. According to Decrypt, the transfer did not show evidence of a sale. The Bitcoin was divided between two newly created addresses: one received 10 BTC and the other 90.02 BTC. Both holdings remained untouched as of Thursday.
What the transaction shows
The transaction was confirmed at 18:52 UTC in Bitcoin block 970,379. Bitcoin blocks are added to the network’s public ledger at intervals of roughly 10 minutes, recording transfers and other network activity.
The owner paid a fee of 1,467 satoshis, or about $1.22. A satoshi is the smallest unit of Bitcoin, equal to one hundred-millionth of a coin. The relatively small fee compared with the value transferred illustrates how the transaction moved millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin without a conventional bank or intermediary.
The destination addresses use the modern “bc1q” format. That format was not available when the coins were first mined. However, the transaction does not identify the person or entity controlling the coins. Moving Bitcoin from one address to another also does not, by itself, mean that the holder has sold it.
The 100.02 BTC came from two mining rewards created only days apart. One 50.02 BTC batch was mined in block 70,522 on July 26, 2010, while another 50 BTC was mined in block 70,748 on July 28. The two batches were combined in a transaction on July 30, 2010, and remained together until this week’s transfer.
At Bitcoin’s highest recorded price in 2010, the combined holding was worth about $29. At the time of the latest move, its value had increased more than a millionfold.
Why the coins are called Satoshi-era
Bitcoin mined during the network’s earliest years is commonly described as “Satoshi-era,” a reference to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. These early mining rewards are closely watched because they have remained dormant for many years and were created when Bitcoin’s value and mining economics were very different from today.
The 2010 period also included one of Bitcoin’s best-known early transactions. Florida programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, spending about $41 at the time.
Mining rewards have since been reduced through four scheduled halvings. The most recent, in April 2024, lowered the reward to 3.125 BTC per block. A block mined today therefore pays one-sixteenth of the reward associated with each of the two 2010 blocks involved in this transfer.
The address that held the coins had activity in later years, sending 100 BTC on two occasions in August 2015, another 100 BTC in December 2017 and 249 BTC in March 2018. Those transfers involved different Bitcoin outputs. Bitcoin records value in individual units known as unspent transaction outputs, or UTXOs, which function somewhat like separate bills. As a result, an address can move some coins while others remain untouched.
Galaxy Research said it tracks the individual coins and their historical movements rather than relying only on address activity. On that basis, the specific 100.02 BTC involved in this week’s transfer had not moved since 2010.
Part of a wider pattern of dormant-wallet activity
The transfer follows several other instances of early Bitcoin holdings becoming active. In February 2025, a 50 BTC batch that had been worth around $0.10 per coin when mined moved after about 15 years. By then, the coins were valued at roughly $5 million.
In August, 49.97 BTC first received in July 2011 also moved after approximately 15 years. The coins went to a wallet labeled by blockchain analytics platform Arkham as FalconX, a prime broker serving trading firms. That label did not establish that the Bitcoin had been sold.
Between August 16 and 26, six wallets that had been inactive since 2011, 2012 or 2014 transferred a combined 553.59 BTC, worth about $40 million. Two of those wallets carried tags connected to a New York lawsuit seeking a court declaration that 39,069 dormant addresses were abandoned property.
For the latest transaction, there was no onward movement from either new address as of Thursday. The blockchain therefore shows that the coins were relocated, but not what the holder ultimately intends to do with them.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data as of October 8, 2026, at 21:44 +03:30, showed Bitcoin at $81,655.132416075, down 1.83% over 24 hours and 3.33% over seven days. Basic Attention Token was $0.1001274264, down 0.05% over 24 hours and up 12.68% over seven days. Toshi was $0.0001110203, down 2.84% over 24 hours and 8.9% over seven days, while Loaded Lions was $0.0013750171, down 4.66% over 24 hours and 10.63% over seven days.
