A mysterious transaction shortly after the Bitcoin blockchain’s 15-year anniversary sparked speculation on Crypto Twitter, with industry watchers offering a number of theories as to why someone sent more than a million dollars to Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet address. 

On Jan. 5, an anonymous Bitcoin user sent 26.9 BTC, worth around $1.2 million at the time, to the wallet that received the first genesis block reward. The destination address is known to be Satoshi’s wallet, and has remained inactive since the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator disappeared in 2010.

 

Blockchain data shows that the funds were withdrawn from crypto exchange Binance around two weeks ago, and moved to a new wallet address before being sent to Satoshi’s wallet.

Although sending coins to the dormant Genesis wallet is not an entirely uncommon phenomenon, the size of the transaction caught the attention of the wider crypto community.

“Either Satoshi woke up, bought 27 bitcoin from Binance, and deposited into their wallet, or someone just burned a million dollars,” wrote Conor Grogan, Coinbase’s head of product and business operations, in a post on X.

Others, like lawyer Jeremy Hogan, a partner at Hogan and Hogan who regularly comments on crypto-related legal cases, suggested that the transaction might have been motivated by someone trying to uncover Satoshi’s true identity.

 

“Under the new IRS rules, you have to report any receipt of crypto over $10k. So, Satoshi has to dox himself, OR break the law,” said Hogan. 

However, market participants pointed out that Hogan’s theory relied on the assumption that Satoshi is an American citizen, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would have to be up to the challenge of tracking down the enigma that is Satoshi.

Another popular theory was that the anonymous sender was someone who owed self-proclaimed “Bitcoin creator” Craig Wright money, and opted to send the funds to an address he claims to own.

“Some in the BSV camp have said that Craig moved it there and plans to dramatically move the coins during his upcoming court case,” wrote X user Timechain.