Bitcoin ‘Epic Sat’ From the Halving Sells for $2.1 Million

The primary satoshi mined on the Bitcoin blockchain after final week’s halving occasion, mined by Bitcoin mining pool ViaBTC, went up for public sale—and fetched a large seven-figure sum.

The public sale of “epic sat” 1,968,750,000,000,000, hosted on the cryptocurrency change CoinEX, ended Thursday with a closing bid of 33.3 Bitcoin ($2.13 million value) successful the piece of Bitcoin historical past. It isn’t but clear who received the public sale.

The public sale of the Epic Sat started on April 20, the day after the halving, with a beginning bid of 1 BTC, round $63,310. On Thursday, within the closing minutes of the public sale, the successful bid jumped a number of occasions from 18 BTC to twenty BTC, and at last the successful determine of 33.3 BTC.

A satoshi is the smallest denomination of Bitcoin, representing 1/100,000,000 of a single coin. Satoshis are awarded rarity ranges based mostly on various elements, and the primary satoshi mined after the quadrennial halving occasion—throughout which the BTC reward for miners is lower in half—known as an “epic sat.” There are actually solely 4 epic sats ever mined so far.

“CoinEx’s associate, the ViaBTC mining pool, has formally mined the 840,000th block,” CoinEx wrote on the public sale publish. “This milestone not solely signifies Bitcoin’s fourth halving but additionally features a block recognized as an epic ‘Uncommon Satoshi’ by the Ordinals numbering system.”

“Most people has a eager curiosity in gathering priceless gadgets. On condition that satoshis are assigned distinctive identifiers, they inherently possess increased collectible worth,” CoinEx wrote. “As periodic occasions happen inside the Bitcoin community, some extra steadily than others, shortage is of course promoted.”

ViaBTC didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s request for remark.

Along with the worth of being one of many first satoshis after the halving, inscribing or etching on one in all these sats doubtlessly brings added worth to collectors of Bitcoin Runes tokens and NFT-like Ordinals inscriptions, doubtlessly valued within the tens of millions of {dollars} general.

“It’s thought that an Ordinals venture that may efficiently buy that satoshi and inscribe an Ordinal on it could have a big market premium due to the underlying satoshi’s rarity,” Blockspace Media co-founder Will Foxley beforehand advised Decrypt.

Edited by Andrew Hayward