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The recently moved 50 bitcoins, which were mined in February 2009, rattled the cryptocurrency community as many members are arguing if Satoshi Nakamoto himself transferred the coins.
While these rumors are speculative at best, the address that sent the bitcoins can actually be located in a court document from the notorious Kleiman vs. Craig Wright legal case.
Not Satoshi’s 50 Bitcoins
As CryptoPotato reported earlier today, 50 bitcoins mined in 2009 were transferred to an unknown address. The sending address, however, has only two transactions linked to it, including this one. The previous one occurred on February 9th, 2009, representing a block reward (coinbase).
Since that initial transfer took place only a month after the Bitcoin network went live, some members of the cryptocurrency community believe that the creator of the digital asset, Satoshi Nakamoto, moved the 50 BTC.
However, numerous other digital asset proponents took the opposite side of the argument, including Adam Back. The co-founder and CEO of Blockstream said that if “Satoshi was selling coins, surely he would sell his most recently mined” to keep his anonymity in check.
Popular Bitcoin analyst, Nic Carter, noted that blocks believed to be mined by Satoshi have a specific pattern in the nonce, “which this block does not have.” Those blocks linked to Satoshi are known to have a so-called “Patoshi pattern.”
Bitcoin educator and developer Jimmy Song also joined the “this is not Satoshi” wagon. He examined various aspects of the block and the transaction in a comprehensive Medium post and ultimately concluded that it was “probably” not Satoshi moving the coins.
Even Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) supported the thesis that there’s a “much higher chance it is NOT Satoshi than it is.” He also referred to another data displaying some blocks created in February and even January of 2009 and were spent years later. Today’s spent amount comes three years after the previous one from August of 2017.
Address Appears On The Kleiman Vs. Wright Case
Aside from the dispute if Satoshi was indeed involved in the 50 BTC spent today, the creator of Twetch brought up another compelling outtake.
The address that received the block reward in February 2009 and sent the 50 bitcoins today can be found in a court document from the infamous legal case between Craig Wright and the Kleiman estate. Both sides have been battling in courts for years regarding bitcoins worth over $1 billion.
It’s worth noting that the appearance of that address in a court document linked to Craig Wright does not necessarily mean that he owned and transferred the amount. Besides, there are plenty of addresses listed on the court’s claim.
However, Wright, who has claimed numerous times before that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, wrote a post on Slack in 2018 warning that he was planning “to sell a large volume of BTC for USD.” He also added that “the sale will align to a reward halving.”
Having in mind that the third-ever Bitcoin halving took place just days ago, the timing of the spent 50 BTC from today appears rather interesting now.
