Large "donations" dumped to Genesis block

[Cricktor]

Sure, sure, one can argue that anybody can do what they want with their coins and I've put "donations" deliberately in quotes because I've no better word for it and frankly don't know what those transactions are and what their purpose is. I guess, I shouldn't judge or try to and simply observe because YoOMMV. It might be important for others and who am I to rant about it (couldn't resist earlier)?

Some simple stats as of a few minutes ago from my node's watch-only wallet of Genesis block combo() descriptor:

• RPC listunspent yields 56,375 UTXOs, including the 50BTC coinbase UTXO which is unspendable
• RPC getwalletinfo current balance is 104.11129626BTC, so 54.11129626BTC have been thrown at the Genesis block, basically immobilized because I don't expect Satoshi to move or consolidate them

Technically those 56,374 UTXOs aren't burned because with the private key of the Genesis block the key holder could spend those UTXOs. I make the assumption that the private key is or was only known to Satoshi. If this private key still exists and is available, nobody knows, except Satoshi. I won't go into further speculations...

[Sticky Bomb]

Sure, sure, one can argue that anybody can do what they want with their coins and I've put "donations" deliberately in quotes because I've no better word for it and frankly don't know what those transactions are and what their purpose is. I guess, I shouldn't judge or try to and simply observe because YoOMMV. It might be important for others and who am I to rant about it (couldn't resist earlier)?

I can simply assume that those coins sent to the Genesis address were a symbol of appreciation to Satoshi for the impressive innovation Bitcoin, I can't really figure out any other meaning to those coins being sent in there so I'll guess that some few dudes who's sitting on cool profits from the prices appreciation would be like Oh Yeah! This dude deserves some accolades and sends some there, others copied until it became a norm.

[Cricktor]

I've doubts that Satoshi would want coins to be immobilized and I'm quite certain, as I said earlier, he won't come and move any movable coins sent to Genesis block or other blocks he mined, besides what he already moved in the first days. Why risk his so far immaculate anonymity and stirr up things big time should he move any of the coins that are attributed to him?

If coins sent there were a token of appreciation^{I too believe most of them are} then why send huge amounts? Isn't e.g. 913sat or 2913 (2K9-01-03 aka 2009-01-03) a sufficient amount to tag the Genesis block if you need or want to do it? Then donate the rest you wanted to give to some charity or other nice and good use.

I strongly believe that Satoshi would more appreciate using and moving around bitcoins and keep them in circulation than bloating the UTXO set with coins that very very likely won't ever move again.

[Cricktor]

And we have another new large "donations" (updated 2025-07-31):

Past March 14^th, 2025 large recent transfers to 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa (more or equal to 500,000 sats):

Amount in BTC		Confirmed (UTC)		Tx
0.18413749		2025-07-31 04:28:10		7bcbabc6f02368fc7ba1b8d239658d80741bbd8543861207c2531ecc0da5bc10
0.01015827		2025-07-25 13:13:55		d6b771a052263fe74140485ea2f3e4d26bedfe7e290e439a8a8fba52add42a7a
0.14318933		2025-07-21 04:40:18		41be08df8445313340e4865cf2f5124b5606eaf807f6582a5c6716d96e9a3027
0.15341422		2025-07-14 04:26:16		8b0ea01018dd85c541a33f2fa086349e6c9913a032c3adc11bed9c21ecb93de5
0.33300000		2025-07-10 19:29:38		fd82374c8ca1f9440e1ffe6999bf919f0c45cbe5aa4d1332e0dd769458219a36
0.17165662		2025-07-07 04:21:29		e4663f4fedbab8c65c69c0d69a4cdfe5e59a7645cce236276ff48d67ec7ffe8d
0.00500000		2025-07-04 09:08:58		c82d355b0ac315a49b0e3144b0e2b060c36f38421eb8d677d0215ac844e2ffae
0.00500000		2025-06-30 12:35:45		4eb3d81a6e52b83bffc90d15091f7983c16c062e791e6b01279db975bf27e61b
0.00500000		2025-06-30 08:48:51		e7314f650a24c78e8397392c47f5938d3e9bda9dc625cedfca421847b6bd6438
0.18458032		2025-06-30 06:25:38		6ba77eb9299e9438ed32261827bc23b8a21a0db2e873f0dfb6b275c26d9ce866
0.00921466		2025-06-29 09:26:01		555006acc092ee2ad53e0de6467f8ce7e3c5177beb71a943a98d7cd52b3c9888
0.02673751		2025-05-29 12:01:34		da77413f13bf77d261dda66b0d1ea26ca2db0c5802cfea96c95d85d1a72a6832
0.00615091		2025-05-15 19:37:43		b1f61c0e64c2c0a9a787d25d4f86d50d0e49f587c736218fc2f04d4eee841add
0.00600000		2025-04-28 10:08:26		adbc26914040cc65e24defb69f9b4442bbd6a2264cf1e25a601cce950ba6a8e0
0.00500000		2025-04-07 07:25:18		8644fc777d52e8e850ecc192cfaa246805e31bc763d84a055244872bf4dcb711

I didn't do any further digging about the origin of inputs or if some "donations" are related to each other.

Current balance at time of this post according to combo(PubKey of Genesis block's coinbase) descriptor, including the unspendable 50BTC of coinbase tx: 104.29575827BTC

This may differ slightly from what mempool.space or bitcoindata.science displays because the combo() descriptor "sees" all address types (except Taproot, IIRC).

[Cricktor]

It took some time, almost two months, until there's another substantial waste of coins thrown at the Genesis block:

Past March 14^th, 2025 large recent transfers to 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa (more or equal to 500,000 sats):

Amount in BTC		Confirmed (UTC)		Tx
0.04896090		2025-09-27 08:38:41		877fae4692b985b5635780b1e7f98e04dc4891793b49ab40d82ac411458ceca9
0.18413749		2025-07-31 04:28:10		7bcbabc6f02368fc7ba1b8d239658d80741bbd8543861207c2531ecc0da5bc10
0.01015827		2025-07-25 13:13:55		d6b771a052263fe74140485ea2f3e4d26bedfe7e290e439a8a8fba52add42a7a
0.14318933		2025-07-21 04:40:18		41be08df8445313340e4865cf2f5124b5606eaf807f6582a5c6716d96e9a3027
0.15341422		2025-07-14 04:26:16		8b0ea01018dd85c541a33f2fa086349e6c9913a032c3adc11bed9c21ecb93de5
0.33300000		2025-07-10 19:29:38		fd82374c8ca1f9440e1ffe6999bf919f0c45cbe5aa4d1332e0dd769458219a36
0.17165662		2025-07-07 04:21:29		e4663f4fedbab8c65c69c0d69a4cdfe5e59a7645cce236276ff48d67ec7ffe8d
0.00500000		2025-07-04 09:08:58		c82d355b0ac315a49b0e3144b0e2b060c36f38421eb8d677d0215ac844e2ffae
0.00500000		2025-06-30 12:35:45		4eb3d81a6e52b83bffc90d15091f7983c16c062e791e6b01279db975bf27e61b
0.00500000		2025-06-30 08:48:51		e7314f650a24c78e8397392c47f5938d3e9bda9dc625cedfca421847b6bd6438
0.18458032		2025-06-30 06:25:38		6ba77eb9299e9438ed32261827bc23b8a21a0db2e873f0dfb6b275c26d9ce866
0.00921466		2025-06-29 09:26:01		555006acc092ee2ad53e0de6467f8ce7e3c5177beb71a943a98d7cd52b3c9888
0.02673751		2025-05-29 12:01:34		da77413f13bf77d261dda66b0d1ea26ca2db0c5802cfea96c95d85d1a72a6832
0.00615091		2025-05-15 19:37:43		b1f61c0e64c2c0a9a787d25d4f86d50d0e49f587c736218fc2f04d4eee841add
0.00600000		2025-04-28 10:08:26		adbc26914040cc65e24defb69f9b4442bbd6a2264cf1e25a601cce950ba6a8e0
0.00500000		2025-04-07 07:25:18		8644fc777d52e8e850ecc192cfaa246805e31bc763d84a055244872bf4dcb711

I didn't do any deeper analysis related to above transactions.

Current balance at time of this post according to combo(PubKey of Genesis block's coinbase) descriptor, including the unspendable 50BTC of coinbase tx: 104.37595725BTC (the difference to previous post's value and newcomer transaction are a lot of smaller dust wastes or whatever their purpose is).

This may differ slightly from what mempool.space or bitcoindata.science displays because the combo() descriptor "sees" all address types (except Taproot, IIRC).

[tread93]

Despite numerous daily dust or sometimes a few thousand sats dumped to the legacy address of the Genesis block, today some entity transfered a whopping 2.6236284BTC as "donation" to address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa, or whatever the intention was for such an amount.

Tx: 416fcc3f798e9c264384f7c6e2d9db459b4c1d84d4f13c7fcc6e673b7753fcc6

I've a hard time not to judge such a sort of obscene transaction. How much good could've been done with such an amount in many countries of this world?

I don't get it why people do this, be it countless small and the few huge amounts of recent time. The "countless" small dust coins bloat the UTXO set, the larger or huge transfers are what exactly? A show off of the filthy rich? I don't know... what's your opinion?

I don't think it's a "showoff by the filthy rich" since the people sending it are not publicly known in the first place. You have a point though. Those massive amounts would definitely go a long way if actually donated, but I guess every individual does what pleases them with their wealth.

I think the same reason why people transfer dust to that address might also be why others transfer massive amounts. Maybe seeing their 2 BTC or whatever amount in the genesis address feels cool to them, but certainly not to everyone. IMO, those massive donations would have gone a long way in terms of donation, but we can't really talk people into what they don't intend to do.

Yeah, it would be better actually being donated to a real cause considering those coins cant/wont ever be spent or accessed and are essentially burned coins. I guess its better for the rest of us and it makes BTC ever a bit more rare than it already is 😄 I wouldn't mind any donations though to my signature address if anyone is feeling generous 😉

[Cricktor]

Any "donation" to the Genesis block can be spent but of course you need the private key that matches the corresponding known public key. Only the 50BTC of the coinbase reward of the Genesis block are unspendable which is a special case for this particular block.

But it's highly unlikely that any UTXO of the Genesis block will ever be spent. So, those UTXOs bloat the UTXO set and are practically taken out of circulation, which is kind of a shame in my opinion but who cares of that anyway.

Speaking of it, there's another larger "donation" coming in today...

Past March 14^th, 2025 large recent transfers to 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa (more or equal to 500,000 sats):

Amount in BTC		Confirmed (UTC)		Tx
0.01197173		2025-09-29 10:56:34		bb5fca631509fbc35a6468f5968c816079d9b87fec6f50b7d6fe8a25190466e1
0.04896090		2025-09-27 08:38:41		877fae4692b985b5635780b1e7f98e04dc4891793b49ab40d82ac411458ceca9
0.18413749		2025-07-31 04:28:10		7bcbabc6f02368fc7ba1b8d239658d80741bbd8543861207c2531ecc0da5bc10
0.01015827		2025-07-25 13:13:55		d6b771a052263fe74140485ea2f3e4d26bedfe7e290e439a8a8fba52add42a7a
0.14318933		2025-07-21 04:40:18		41be08df8445313340e4865cf2f5124b5606eaf807f6582a5c6716d96e9a3027
0.15341422		2025-07-14 04:26:16		8b0ea01018dd85c541a33f2fa086349e6c9913a032c3adc11bed9c21ecb93de5
0.33300000		2025-07-10 19:29:38		fd82374c8ca1f9440e1ffe6999bf919f0c45cbe5aa4d1332e0dd769458219a36
0.17165662		2025-07-07 04:21:29		e4663f4fedbab8c65c69c0d69a4cdfe5e59a7645cce236276ff48d67ec7ffe8d
0.00500000		2025-07-04 09:08:58		c82d355b0ac315a49b0e3144b0e2b060c36f38421eb8d677d0215ac844e2ffae
0.00500000		2025-06-30 12:35:45		4eb3d81a6e52b83bffc90d15091f7983c16c062e791e6b01279db975bf27e61b
0.00500000		2025-06-30 08:48:51		e7314f650a24c78e8397392c47f5938d3e9bda9dc625cedfca421847b6bd6438
0.18458032		2025-06-30 06:25:38		6ba77eb9299e9438ed32261827bc23b8a21a0db2e873f0dfb6b275c26d9ce866
0.00921466		2025-06-29 09:26:01		555006acc092ee2ad53e0de6467f8ce7e3c5177beb71a943a98d7cd52b3c9888
0.02673751		2025-05-29 12:01:34		da77413f13bf77d261dda66b0d1ea26ca2db0c5802cfea96c95d85d1a72a6832
0.00615091		2025-05-15 19:37:43		b1f61c0e64c2c0a9a787d25d4f86d50d0e49f587c736218fc2f04d4eee841add
0.00600000		2025-04-28 10:08:26		adbc26914040cc65e24defb69f9b4442bbd6a2264cf1e25a601cce950ba6a8e0
0.00500000		2025-04-07 07:25:18		8644fc777d52e8e850ecc192cfaa246805e31bc763d84a055244872bf4dcb711

Current balance at time of this post according to combo(PubKey of Genesis block's coinbase) descriptor, including the unspendable 50BTC of coinbase tx: 104.38797936BTC (the difference to previous post's value and newcomer transaction are a lot of smaller dust wastes or whatever their purpose is).

This may differ slightly from what mempool.space or bitcoindata.science displays because the combo() descriptor "sees" all address types (except Taproot, IIRC).