to update: Additional blockchain analysis Indicates This purchase was the result of a for-profit “Saturday Hunt”. Programmatically Buy and withdraw Bitcoin from Binance. The article has been revised accordingly.
One of only four rare “Epic Sats”, as defined by the Ordinals Protocol, was discovered and withdrawn from the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading platform Binance today.
These special satoshis, which do not originally exist on Bitcoin, but can be identified through an accompanying program, are among the rarest and most important satoshis in the history of Bitcoin. While Bitcoin has a strict cap of 2.1 quadrillion satoshis, or 21 million bitcoins, the protocol does not track them individually.
This sequence is specified only in the Ordinals Protocol, a high-level meta-protocol built on Bitcoin.
Breaking news: the first satoshi #BitcoinThe second halving block was found by a Binance user.
$10 deal worth $33 $ Bitcoin. Win the jackpot 🙌 pic.twitter.com/rLE16ogNsc
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 2, 2024
The term “Epic Sat” refers to the first satoshi in each Bitcoin halving era, which occurs approximately every four years. Recently, the first Epic Sat of the 2024 halving sold for more than $2 million at auction, sparking curiosity about these rare units.
In this case, a Binance user withdrew a transaction containing an Epic Sat from Bitcoin's 420,000th block in 2016. Binance failed to identify the UTXO containing the valuable Satoshi and kept it for itself, representing potentially millions of dollars in surveillance.
While it was initially thought to be a single exchange user, analysis… By Mononaut on X It reveals that the acquirer was likely a complex operation that was scouting Binance's inventory for UTXOs that might correlate with rare sats on Ordinals.
This Blockchain analysis shows UTXO, classified by Ordinals as having a sat number”157500000000000“, moved to the user's wallet after he purchased and transferred Bitcoin.
Its rarity is comparable to winning the lottery, as there are only four “Epic Sats” to date. (In total, 34 copies will be issued during subsequent halves.)
The wallet address that now contains the UTXO pointing to the desired Satoshi is bc1ptjcsnnycr52ccwg4mvvsczkwzvc0qydlxw6q7pcelxkx8equk3asduuz86.
Market watchers will no doubt now wait to see whether the Epic Sat holder keeps it for himself or sells it, perhaps for millions.
Investigators can verify the transaction by referring to arrangement indexing tools such as Ord.io And ordinal.com. These identify Satoshi's number and position in the chain, allowing his location to be tracked via the explorer-like Mempool.space.
Although controversial, these epic satellites create profound digital rarity that resembles rare collectibles. A Binance user's good fortune could spark further interest and intensify the search for the two remaining Epic Sats from 2012 and 2020.
