historical blk00000 coinbase analysis: is ~1.7 M bitcoins likely lost?

[DougM]

Please excuse another newbie question...I did search first, but I didn't find a close enough thread to satisfy my curiosity.
In 2018 this article calculated a much larger number but it wasn't as conservative and it used later transactions https://www.leaprate.com/cryptocurrency/bitcoin/lost-bitcoins-satoshi-coins/

I am continuing to explore the early bitcoin blockchain using blk00000.dat covering 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24 time period.

Out of the ~6M bitcoins mined in these early days, I calculate ~1.716M bitcoins sent to 34,327 output addresses remain untouched today (~28.6%!). 
By 'untouched' I mean that the address' total received matches the final balance meaning that the address was used once for mining then completely dormant for the last decade.   

Questions: Are these generally considered 'lost'?
Is it reasonable to assume most were mined by 'satoshi'? I know 'satoshi' might suddenly become active and dump his 1M+ any day... 
I assume there would be similar dormant accounts if I looked after 2011-04-24, but I figured those dormant accounts during these early days are more likely to remain dormant i.e. lost.

here is my simplistic methodology in a nutshell:

• 1) extracted 119,965 coinbase transactions from blk00000.dat each mining 50 bitcoins using a single output address (only 73 had multiple so I ignored them for these calculations) using pyblockchain's BlockchainFileReader
• 2) looked up current balances for each of the 34,327 output addresses using chain.api.btc.com
• 3) summed up bitcoins for any of these output address where the total_received matched the final balance (i.e., none were ever sent)

Thanks again for your insight!

[gmaxwell]

Some are certainly lost, but there is no particular reason to think that all or even most of them are lost.

Wallets try to minimize change, generally, and a big 50 BTC output is going to result in a lot of change unless you're moving nearly 50 BTC... so some of these coins could even be in actively used wallets and still sit unmoved.

Recently someone posted a signmessage from 145 of the keys that would have been in your list.

Is it reasonable to assume most were mined by 'satoshi'?

I don't agree that it is, many were clearly not.  Bitcoin was public from the first mined block and we do know that quite a few other named people participated from pretty much the beginning.

[TheArchaeologist]

Code:

address                           |total_incoming    |total_outgoing|
----------------------------------|------------------|--------------|
12tkqA9xSoowkzoERHMWNKsTey55YEBqkv| 28150.05015902001|           0.0|
1HLvaTs3zR3oev9ya7Pzp3GB9Gqfg6XYJT| 9260.000364999998|           0.0|
198aMn6ZYAczwrE5NvNTUMyJ5qkfy4g3Hi|     8000.00033346|           0.0|
1PTYXwamXXgQoAhDbmUf98rY2Pg1pYXhin|3233.1703100000004|           0.0|
1HjdiADVHew97yM8z4Vqs4iPwMyQHkkuhj|2200.0002100000006|           0.0|

There are even a few addresses from that period with a lot more than 50BTC incoming and nothing ever spent.

Code:

sum(total_incoming)|
-------------------|
 1398416.2312229003|

When summing all balances from addresses funded in blocks below a height of 52200 and no outgoing transactions whatsoever I get a number quite a bit lower than your 1.7 million, about 1,398,416 BTC untouched.

There is no way of telling how much of these coins were mined by Satoshi and/or which coins have their associated private keys lost forever.

[DougM]

First, thanks for reoply and for double checking my counts with what you have!

There are even a few addresses from that period with a lot more than 50BTC incoming and nothing ever spent.

Good point!  However, I was targeting only coinbase transactions with a single output address then zero activity to be ultra conservative with my estimates.  During these early days (i.e., within blk00000.dat) I found some output address that had two coinbase transactions, but only a tiny percent and almost all were ultimately 'spent'.  Therefore, I was specifically hunting for the '50 mined coins going to a single account never to be heard from again' scenario that appeared to be fairly. My theory is these would be the most likely addresses where the private keys are lost forever.

When summing all balances from addresses funded in blocks below a height of 52200 and no outgoing transactions whatsoever I get a number quite a bit lower than your 1.7 million, about 1,398,416 BTC untouched.

Now that is very interesting.  My poor man's approach, (since I don't have the entire blockchain downloaded) involved checking the current balance for the 119,965 coinbase transactions I found in blk0000.dat using chain.api.btc.com. Maybe the balances I got via their API for these early addresses wasn't accurate?  I get a sum of ~171,601,616,424,739 sats or ~1,716,016 bit coins (1:100000000 right?)

below a height of 52200

Sorry, I am still learning about heights....would that covers all of the coinbase transactions from blk0000.dat from 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24 time period that I was targeting? Another check is to compare how many coinbase transactions in your calculations....is it around 200,000 too? If so, I am leaning toward fault balances with the API unless you can think of something else that might explain our 400,000+ delta?  Is it easy to determine how much of your 1.4 total includes accounts with total received > ~51 to see how much larger our delta is?

Thanks again for sharing your insights!

[pooya87]

below a height of 52200

Sorry, I am still learning about heights....would that covers all of the coinbase transactions from blk0000.dat from 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24 time period that I was targeting? Another check is to compare how many coinbase transactions in your calculations....is it around 200,000 too? If so, I am leaning toward fault balances with the API unless you can think of something else that might explain our 400,000+ delta?  Is it easy to determine how much of your 1.4 total includes accounts with total received > ~51 to see how much larger our delta is?

each block is in a chain (hence the blockchain name) so each has a number associated with them starting from 0 (genesis block) to 1 (first block) and so on. each block itself has a header that contains a timestamp, all you have to do is check that variable to know the approximate time that block was mined (approximate because the miner's clock might not have been accurate or they may not have updated the time field correctly).

considering this part:

I am continuing to explore the early bitcoin blockchain using blk00000.dat covering 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24 time period.

When summing all balances from addresses funded in blocks below a height of 52200

block #52200 was mined on 2010-04-20 23:35 according to blockchair which means the difference between your totals might have been because @TheArchaeologist is not counting 67,803 blocks (until block height 120003).
although that height is based on timestamps. if you are using the blk00000.dat file you might want to check what the last block inside that file is to get the more accurate number.

[TheArchaeologist]

To be honest, I missed an entire year :S My block height of 52,200 was based on april 2010 instead of 2011.

When checking the raw file blk0000.dat I saw the last block in there was with height 119977. So I ran the numbers again:

Code:

sum(total_incoming)|
-------------------|
 1763310.7677514425|

These are all coins mined/deposited up till April 2011 (block 119977) which are untouched until today. This number ismore consistent with your 1.7M estimate. Please note that my own database hasn't synced fully yet so if coins have been spent recently they might still be in this number. In short: it's an educated estimate not an exact given

[DougM]

each block is in a chain (hence the blockchain name) so each has a number associated with them starting from 0 (genesis block) to 1 (first block) and so on. each block itself has a header that contains a timestamp, all you have to do is check that variable to know the approximate time that block was mined (approximate because the miner's clock might not have been accurate or they may not have updated the time field correctly).

Nice!  so simple when you put it that way.  Unfortunately I don't think I included the block number in my DB, but I can reprocess blk00000 easily enough to add it.  Thanks you.

Also, thanks to TheArchaeologist for figuring out our delta problem.  So, given my initial assumptions (single output coinbase transactions) and limited scope (blk00000) the 1.7M appears to be a decent estimate.  But as you pointed out there are some larger accounts that have long been dormant that are worth considering too. 

Amazing how much bitcoin knowledge/expertise is represented here. Thank you all for sharing it with the newbies 

[DougM]

Is it reasonable to assume most were mined by 'satoshi'?

I don't agree that it is, many were clearly not.  Bitcoin was public from the first mined block and we do know that quite a few other named people participated from pretty much the beginning.

This recent article references some interesting data mining analysis that concluded Satoshi mined as many as 1.1 M bitcoins during the first 7 months.  I guess 1.1 M isn't most of 1.7 but still a lot of them 
1.1 M is estimated to be ~10 B $ today   

https://decrypt.co/34810/how-many-bitcoin-does-its-inventor-satoshi-nakamoto-still-own

[pooya87]

This recent article references

this is not new, the news site has just dug up an ancient guesswork and published it as news. Lerner's work is flawed and like others it is still a guesswork. the "pattern" itself is also very controversial.

[DougM]

This recent article references

this is not new, the news site has just dug up an ancient guesswork and published it as news. Lerner's work is flawed and like others it is still a guesswork. the "pattern" itself is also very controversial.

I read more articles on Lerner's research.  Personally, I  found his research, further refined following feedback from several early thread discussions, is very impressive and believable.

That said, I am self-admitted amateur who was NOT here when this all started so I would love if someone could help me understand in a nutshell why the latest version of Lerner's 'Patoshi' pattern is so flawed to the degree that it is largely not accurate, i.e., not the work of 'Satoshi' and/or not the volume attributed to one miner at least?   

IMHO, these observations all contribute to his conclusion which makes it hard for me to believe it is anything else, but Satoshi's own work: 1) the line and angle patterns of the ExtraNonce, 2) the fact that 'Patoshi' attributed block 'lines' start in the beginning and just happens to end when Satoshi is exiting, 3) virtually all of these blocks fall into the collection of possibility 'lost' coins (i.e. untouched), and 4) his newer computer clock observation (further supporting his 'one miner' theory)

I would love to hear any counter arguments.  For reference, here is the latest version of his research I believe which even addresses some of the constructive feedback (i.e., counter arguments) provided early on:
https://bitslog.com/2019/04/16/the-return-of-the-deniers-and-the-revenge-of-patoshi/
https://bitslog.com/2020/06/22/a-new-mystery-in-patoshi-timestamps/  (a more recent 'Potoshi' timestamp pattern detailed)

BTW regardless of who actually mined the blocks or not his http://satoshiblocks.info/ is a neat tool to visualize these early blocks 

Thanks in advance!

[pooya87]

well the best hole i can poke into this theory is going to be based on hashrate. there is a very low chance that only a single CPU could have generate that much hashrate to mine all those blocks, there must have been more than 1 individual and separate CPUs mining at the same time to increase the luck of finding blocks at that rate. there were no pool mining and the bitcoin client at that time didn't have the commands required for it either (hence the separate CPUs).

to mine blocks during in early days for example about 20 MHS was needed, if my calculations are correct. taking the data from this page which is based on highly optimized and specialized software to mine bitcoin on CPU that didn't exist in 2009 the only single CPU that could generate that much hashrate is Phenom II X6 which was released in 2010 (2 years after this period).
the best CPU i could find in 2008 can generate around 5-6 MHS which means at least 4 of them were needed to compute that many hashes.

even without hashrate argument i could group different blocks together in a way that it seems like 3 miners were mining.
it is a bit exaggerated but assume 3 miners Miner A, Miner B and Miner C start mining near the same time, the result could look like this. for instance Miner B after finding block 86 starts an unlucky streak where he fails to find the next block and has to increment his extraNonce until he gets lucky again in the competition and finds block 91


here is another problem.
we know for a fact that Satoshi was mining bitcoin and most definitely had a high hashrate.
we also know for a fact that the code he was running would have never acted like below picture (ie. bitcoin version 0.1) as it can be seen from the source. i also say that it is impossible for a developer to have a separate and different code running for himself alone without releasing it as a part of his project (ie. bitcoin version 0.1).
the only logical conclusion is that someone else was mining bitcoin with a self written code that had this difference (not incrementing extraNonce when another block was found)


so the only part of this whole thing that i can accept is that blocks like this last picture (359 and 362) are mined by the same code which is most probably run on the same CPU but the subsequent blocks have less chance. basically i say if the gap between the extraNonces are small there is a higher chance of it being mined by the same code/CPU but as the gap grows the chance decreases since another miner could have caught up. and something like this is not unlikely:
miner 1: 498, 509, 524, 526, ...
miner 2: 503, 513, 522, 533, ...

[DougM]

well the best hole i can poke into this theory is going to be based on hashrate. there is a very low chance that only a single CPU could have generate that much hashrate to mine all those blocks, there must have been more than 1 individual and separate CPUs mining at the same time to increase the luck of finding blocks at that rate. there were no pool mining and the bitcoin client at that time didn't have the commands required for it either (hence the separate CPUs)....

Awesome pooya87,  thanks for taking the time to outline the hashrate counter-argument!  

I still have a lot to learn...please bare with me. I have never mined bitcoins especially back in time period covered by the 'potashi' lines so I greatly value this forum's collective expertise/knowledge on what i would take for Satoshi to pull this off.   I have been trying to read up on the hashrate. Here is some tidbits that I found interesting:

During these early days proof-of-work difficulty was at the minimum (first increase was until 12/30/2009).  

minimum 00000000ffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
30/12/2009 00000000d86a0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11/01/2010 00000000c4280000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
25/01/2010 00000000be710000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
04/02/2010 000000008cc30000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
....
According to Satoshi "The minimum difficulty is 32 zero bits, so even if only one person was running a node, the difficulty doesn't get any easier than that. "  

Cryptography Mailing List Bitcoin v0.1 released 2009-01-08 19:27:40 UTC - -
"You can get coins by getting someone to send you some, or turn on Options->Generate Coins to run a node and generate blocks. I made the proof-of-work difficulty ridiculously easy to start with, so for a little while in the beginning a typical PC will be able to generate coins in just a few hours. "

I think we all agree that Satoshi is an utterly brilliant visionary and likely very protective of his bitcoin brainchild. Parents can do some crazy things for their children  

Follow Questions with that in mind:

Wouldn't Satoshi want/need consistent mining going on during the early days to validate transactions until bitcoin gained enough momentum to move on its own? I was curious about:

If broadcasts turn out to be slower in practice than expected, the target time between blocks may have to be increased to avoid wasting resources. We want blocks to usually propagate in much less time than it takes to generate them, otherwise nodes would spend too much time working on obsolete blocks. – Satoshi Nakamoto

"Conversely, if blocks were being mined slower than every 10 minutes, the target will adjust upwards to make is easier to get below the target for the next period of blocks."
...isn't this an incentive for Satoshi to mine regularly to ensure blocks get processed in time since difficulty was already at the minimum until the end of 2019?

In 2008 he was aware fully aware of '51% attack threat' and envision early that impact GPU would have on mining. In 2009 he developed and added multi-processor support for coin generation into 0.2 which would require extensive development/test.  Given who we know he is, isn't it possible Satoshi built some kind of mult-node mining farm or even a supped up multiple CPU processor computer system that mined coins at a rate much greater than the typical hobbyist bitcoin miner during these early days?  

Here is Satoshi emails/posts that I found most relevant:

Satoshi developed bitcoin's multi-processor support for mining:

Bitcoin 0.2 released!2009-12-16 2
Satoshi Nakamoto
- Multi-processor support for coin generation (which would have required development and testing)

Well aware of the impact GPU and dedicated hardware would have on mining:

Satoshi Nakamoto <satoshin@gmx.com> Sun, Apr 12, 2009
To: Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
"Eventually, most nodes may be run by specialists with multiple GPU cards. For
now, it's nice that anyone with a PC can play without worrying about what video
card they have, and hopefully it'll stay that way for a while. More computers are
shipping with fairly decent GPUs these days, so maybe later we'll transition to that"

2009-12-12 17:52:44 UTC

"The average total coins generated across the network per day stays the same. Faster
machines just get a larger share than slower machines. If everyone bought faster
machines, they wouldn't get more coins than before.
We should have a gentleman's agreement to postpone the GPU arms race as long as we
can for the good of the network. It's much easer to get new users up to speed if they don't
have to worry about GPU drivers and compatibility. It's nice how anyone with just a
CPU can compete fairly equally right now."

51% Attack threat awareness as early as 2008:

Cryptography Mailing List Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper 2008-11-03 16:23:49 UTC - -
>> As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network,
>> they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers.
>
>But they don't. Bad guys routinely control zombie farms of 100,000
>machines or more. People I know who run a blacklist of spam sending
>zombies tell me they often see a million new zombies a day.
>
>This is the same reason that hashcash can't work on today's Internet
>-- the good guys have vastly less computational firepower than the bad
>guys.
Thanks for bringing up that point.
I didn't really make that statement as strong as I could have. The requirement is that the
good guys collectively have more CPU power than any single attacker.
There would be many smaller zombie farms that are not big enough to overpower the
network, and they could still make money by generating bitcoins. The smaller farms are
then the "honest nodes". (I need a better term than "honest") The more smaller farms
resort to generating bitcoins, the higher the bar gets to overpower the network, making
larger farms also too small to overpower it so that they may as well generate bitcoins too.
According to the "long tail" theory, the small, medium and merely large farms put
together should add up to a lot more than the biggest zombie farm.
Even if a bad guy does overpower the network, it's not like he's instantly rich. All he can
accomplish is to take back money he himself spent, like bouncing a check. To exploit it,
he would have to buy something from a merchant, wait till it ships, then overpower the
network and try to take his money back. I don't think he could make as much money
trying to pull a carding scheme like that as he could by generating bitcoins. With a
zombie farm that big, he could generate more bitcoins than everyone else combined.

[pooya87]

Wouldn't Satoshi want/need consistent mining going on during the early days to validate transactions until bitcoin gained enough momentum to move on its own? I was curious about:

If broadcasts turn out to be slower in practice than expected, the target time between blocks may have to be increased to avoid wasting resources. We want blocks to usually propagate in much less time than it takes to generate them, otherwise nodes would spend too much time working on obsolete blocks. – Satoshi Nakamoto

"Conversely, if blocks were being mined slower than every 10 minutes, the target will adjust upwards to make is easier to get below the target for the next period of blocks."
...isn't this an incentive for Satoshi to mine regularly to ensure blocks get processed in time since difficulty was already at the minimum until the end of 2019?

that is what i think, and also i have seen others come to the same conclusion too, that Satoshi was running miners (plural) to ensure blockchain keeps growing since in early days you couldn't rely on someone who was just interested to see how bitcoin works to come use it for an hour and then stay instead of going away. that is why we say he was using multiple computers to mine bitcoin.

In 2008 he was aware fully aware of '51% attack threat' and envision early that impact GPU would have on mining. In 2009 he developed and added multi-processor support for coin generation into 0.2 which would require extensive development/test.  Given who we know he is, isn't it possible Satoshi built some kind of mult-node mining farm or even a supped up multiple CPU processor computer system that mined coins at a rate much greater than the typical hobbyist bitcoin miner during these early days? 

in my opinion it is highly unlikely that Satoshi did any secretive work like this. he might have had the idea of pooling the work (similar idea that led to creation of the first mining pool in late 2010) but to have already implemented a working one is unlikely.
as for a faster CPU miner, i say it is impossible. because he would have just published it as a part of the bitcoin client's code.

51% Attack threat awareness as early as 2018:
Cryptography Mailing List Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper 2008-11-03 16:23:49 UTC - -

i think you mean 2008. and the risk of 51% attack and also collective attack where attackers join CPU power is actually hinted in the bitcoin paper which is released 3 days before this Email. "The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes." it is also explained a bit more in "11. Calculations".

[DougM]

that is what i think, and also i have seen others come to the same conclusion too, that Satoshi was running miners (plural) to ensure blockchain keeps growing since in early days you couldn't rely on someone who was just interested to see how bitcoin works to come use it for an hour and then stay instead of going away. that is why we say he was using multiple computers to mine bitcoin.
...
in my opinion it is highly unlikely that Satoshi did any secretive work like this. he might have had the idea of pooling the work (similar idea that led to creation of the first mining pool in late 2010) but to have already implemented a working one is unlikely.
as for a faster CPU miner, i say it is impossible. because he would have just published it as a part of the bitcoin client's code.

First, thanks for catching the date typo..I edited it  Second, thanks for your insight/thoughts on this topic (I welcome any others thoughts!)

I was just trying to brainstorm on the plausibility that a single 'entity' i.e., Satoshi did these early mining that have gone untouched even given your hashrate concern.  Being not a miner, or someone with your technical breath in this area, nor someone back at that time frame, I can't contribute on a technical basis, but I still can't come up with a alternative explanation to explain the patterns evident in the blockchain.   Your multiple miner theory is interesting, but I still have questions to better understand how that would explain what happened.

To clarify, in your opinion, do you agree that Satoshi likely ran multiple miners to ensure his fledgling bitcoin network took root?  
If he hadn't do something like this than blocks wouldn't have been validated for hours or even days which would have turned off early adopters.
For the sake of argument, let's say Satoshi WAS running multiple miners to keep his early network going....would that address your hashrate concern or do you still have reservations?

Here is a technical follow on question due to my complete ignorance about how the initial bitcoin mining actually works:
*If* Satoshi was running multiple computers, how does the 'ExtraNonce' incrementing work so that across multiple physical miners it would increment in the manner exhibited here?
http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=72
Conversely if these were just a random bunch of early adapters that downloaded Bitcoin v0.1.0 on January 9, 2009 acting independently how would the ExtraNonce increment in such a uniform pattern?

I have been reviewing early blocks mined by known individuals to see how they fit or not fit the 'Patoshi' pattern, but i need to get a better understanding on how the ExtraNonce gets assigned/incremented early on to know if mapping their blocks to that chart is relevant or not.  Based on my amateur review of the the V0.1.0 code it seems like all the 'nodes' running by a given BitcoinMiner instance would share the a common ExtraNonce value that would get incremented each time a block was found. You postulated that multiple distinct miners were contributing to the 'Potoshi' pattern but the bnExtraNonce variable is local and would be distinct for each instance of BitcoinMiner, right?  

bool BitcoinMiner()
{
    printf("BitcoinMiner started\n");
    SetThreadPriority(GetCurrentThread(), THREAD_PRIORITY_LOWEST);

    CKey key;
    key.MakeNewKey();
    CBigNum bnExtraNonce = 0;
    while (fGenerateBitcoins)
    {
        Sleep(50);
        CheckForShutdown(3);
        while (vNodes.empty())
        {
            Sleep(1000);
            CheckForShutdown(3);
        }
...
       // Create coinbase tx
        //
        CTransaction txNew;
        txNew.vin.resize(1);
        txNew.vin[0].prevout.SetNull();
        txNew.vin[0].scriptSig << nBits << ++bnExtraNonce;
        txNew.vout.resize(1);
        txNew.vout[0].scriptPubKey << key.GetPubKey() << OP_CHECKSIG;

I suspect that during his development of bitcoin he created a multiple node mining testing 'cluster' (I am using that term loosely but  you know what I mean) to simulate how bitcoin mining would work with many miners BEFORE it went live. IMHO I suspect he ran this same thing on production to ensure blocks got confirmed on a regular basis out of necessity.  [I am still in the camp that 'Satoshi' is a single individual versus a 'group'....of course he got a *lot* of help from his peers to make it a reality.]

Given he knew he had a technical advantage with it (but it was necessary to get bitcoin started), is it possible he purposely simply 'burned' many of the early coins since I believe his objective was to ensure the success of bitcoin and not necessarily to get rich?

If so this would help explain why ~1M early coins were never spent AND they happen to fit the observed 'Patoshi' pattern (http://satoshiblocks.info/), right?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[DougM]

To help try to support/debunk the "patoshi" lines as THE Satoshi, I attempted to gather the few 'known' early non-Satoshi blocks and see what they can tell us.  Hal Finney (RIP  ) and theymos were kind enough to share screen shots of their earliest transactions in past threads.  I transcribed them all, resolved each funding block, and mapped them using satoshiblocks.info (see below).  

Sources:

Hal's early Mined blocks/accounts --> https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FKjGZOoR.png&t=615&c=47KeLAG24YRF9w
(sorry just a newbie so I can't include actual screen shots  )
appearing in Taras's wonderful 'Payment No. 1: A Closer Look at the Very First Bitcoin Transfer' thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2346992.0
This thread also IDs block #9 attribution to Satoshi and identifies the likely reason block #9 was used to 'gift' bitcoins from Satoshi to Hal.

Do I get to be Satoshi too? I was off by only a few days... https://i.imgur.com/w57rtbs.png
I know first-hand that there were several different people who mined before January 2010. It's kind of funny that history I've lived through is being questioned...

Thankfully ALL of theymos mined blocks fall outside of the patoshi lines.
All except for Hal's (in)famous first mined block #78 also fall outside of the Patoshi lines.
Others have speculated about the block 78 anomaly...I will try to recap the highlights and add a potentially new theory for consideration.

Miner	Mined Block	View Mined Block via satoshiblocks	Account
theymos	40212	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40212	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GvpZ7hwrMqVKbGLfs7gZiSh642mRfKsae
theymos	40207	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40207	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/19ePheuntFU6FGsd1Mc2gRJBP1NhLobTFw
theymos	40143	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40143	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GNekSjZMMyWfcQCijXexXNFfmGdrbbAhD
theymos	40132	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40132	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GQ8ALq2x3DszEBPhA5ky1MMj2HRoe7DMD
theymos	40086	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40086	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1QBHnS6wDfMbw1LXu8CDw6uEQTi7F19AAc
theymos	40072	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40072	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1DAVBCzbbm9dBTQgJ8xkdGoLUSP7yn6Pt1
theymos	40048	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=40048	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Ar9TkY4Rt8x1bBDs7rHuHYo4ypS88JxjY
theymos	39964	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39964	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1PWL3D4BcTAhnf73vc9B9vyYFgKpNzGpLn
theymos	39960	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39960	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1PNEjPmmWZTVML1uB3FmFvbzpzTwv7RCcA
theymos	39957	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39957	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/17GyhbDFi7RQMPfxR3h1VnPa6vFiVHVhK1
theymos	39930	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39930	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/112pJXp3VvjS9ECMKFQtHSgbxi79wchDzK
theymos	39692	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39692	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1FcEwmLSRNZ57PTeZYianPM6pWy5eRZGFJ
theymos	39523	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39523	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1MQj9gL5xR1wRRSMXkHS1x1oThtaqZnFQ
theymos	39385	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39385	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/142bpcSfcbYTwsoNf1MUCbeBaijpJQUs1J
theymos	39318	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39318	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1HxQavcwsYnLbntANzj1V1yC5ckxZiRELg
theymos	39183	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39183	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1Cu42YDpoZRdmfipnSKVJokSF7h7QKgKfF
theymos	39168	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39168	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/19qLedpeHpK3oncugU3BdzVKbJNEfR7Jot
theymos	39111	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39111	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1DNvckqZmnfSWkKz4AEHncNtHCqaQv4P8Y
theymos	39014	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39014	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1N5TKZ82GqZ9e1jwokEvF5wt726Er9DhXM
theymos	39002	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=39002	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GB4NvJsHo32QC9bmj8a7a5bR9JeK6Tijd
theymos	38965	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38965	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/13f3nyvfo3pm3E6EucUJi2EHKrFrGLeJQW
theymos	38954	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38954	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/19QSH7vr8ysD495ztPXnPsdaoXUizbKZve
theymos	38937	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38937	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1BKAXj2WR56zNXRLZeVzG4xQBnqkCAW34v
theymos	38901	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38901	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1EHBjax1YoCBiVTq1XusVQtGZXcBtC67u4
theymos	38785	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38785	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/195zWsxn9cVESmSkpB3fv5pRYN5hNkanqa
theymos	38757	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38757	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1N5FJKJg9TJr36vccWNPcjgh9NbX19J7Zp
theymos	38754	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=38754	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/19BFPLqRvevYcgkRzCCRo5HW14CcZMYXmL
Hal Finney	707	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=707	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1HZKjpAYdaiXvCV3b6mXExrhPd3djzDWM
Hal Finney	685	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=685	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1ADTuxdhYePCW9PEvkCKnib6jmbg6mKXdz
Hal Finney	651	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=651	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/14nELEgJL95NU3BKi5D734ysFuVUCEjLWg
Hal Finney	567	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=567	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/18bN2GBzfRwnV6dmr7MiuDoxn39uqvjwPs
Hal Finney	528	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=528	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/12oRSUW6UVYNCUk8yyrFvbpbJw7uia31sA
Hal Finney	490	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=490	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/15ALyVo8ZuoTikHMYRq6p8nGr17gxQApXf
Hal Finney	419	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=419	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/19CkFSEiHB5UVah3fvZD17qk48m82TfAp8
Hal Finney	413	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=413	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/15ATbhqgqxkGen8ZLsb2BEbQzw3ymdzbQ9
Hal Finney	372	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=372	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1PQjPXAtSZfUiiQeD4nafQ7HKx7J1kYQ4J
Hal Finney	361	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=361	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/12wej8tANWruTQFEhWFJtTkjNLt76pE268
Hal Finney	235	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=235	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1PmhUgoVLtTgdcvfi1cwwSTvPvFC67bCQs
Hal Finney	78	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=78	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1AiBYt8XbsdyPAELFpcSwRpu45eb2bArMf
Satoshi	9	http://satoshiblocks.info/?bn=9	https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/12cbQLTFMXRnSzktFkuoG3eHoMeFtpTu3S

If anyone else knows of any more early attributed blocks , please send them my way to add to the list.   Thanks!

[pooya87]

To clarify, in your opinion, do you agree that Satoshi likely ran multiple miners to ensure his fledgling bitcoin network took root? 
If he hadn't do something like this than blocks wouldn't have been validated for hours or even days which would have turned off early adopters.
For the sake of argument, let's say Satoshi WAS running multiple miners to keep his early network going....would that address your hashrate concern or do you still have reservations?

yes i say Satoshi used more than one CPU to mine bitcoin (multiple miners) to ensure blockchain grew in reasonable amount of time or maybe even to have the benefit of hiding his identity more. but i disagree with any theory saying they were connected and were "pooling their work".

You postulated that multiple distinct miners were contributing to the 'Potoshi' pattern but the bnExtraNonce variable is local and would be distinct for each instance of BitcoinMiner, right? 

it is but also it is affected by other miners finding a new block among other things.
if Miner B starts at 1 and miner A finds a block then Miner B increments its extraNonce to 2, then miner A finds another block and Miner B goes to extraNonce=3.
also if it runs out of nonce to increment and when a new transaction has entered its memory pool.

Given he knew he had a technical advantage with it (but it was necessary to get bitcoin started), is it possible he purposely simply 'burned' many of the early coins since I believe his objective was to ensure the success of bitcoin and not necessarily to get rich?

If so this would help explain why ~1M early coins were never spent AND they happen to fit the observed 'Patoshi' pattern (http://satoshiblocks.info/), right?

well recently a bunch of early-day miners signed messages (against a scammer claiming he owned those coins and were Satoshi) that means there are others who own many of those early "unmoved" coins. so i wouldn't count on those coins being "burnt". even if they were mined by Satoshi there is no reason why some day he couldn't come back and use those coins.

All except for Hal's (in)famous first mined block #78 also fall outside of the Patoshi lines.
Others have speculated about the block 78 anomaly...I will try to recap the highlights and add a potentially new theory for consideration.

this fits perfectly with what i drew above in my pictures since block 78 has an extraNonce that is exactly 1 step above the previous.

[TheArchaeologist]

If anyone else knows of any more early attributed blocks , please send them my way to add to the list.   Thanks!

Code:

0009 Satoshi
0078 Hal
0235 Hal
0268 Vaga*
0309 Druid
0320 Druid
0329 Druid
0357 Druid
0360 Bbz*
0361 Hal
0372 Hal
0394 Druid
0407 Druid
0413 Hal
0417 Vaga*
0419 Hal
0431 Vaga*
0433 Druid
0439 Druid
0442 Vaga*
0450 Vaga*
0461 Druid
0463 PUR3*
0465 Druid
0473 Druid
0490 Hal
0493 Druid
0501 Zzz*
0506 Zzz*
0509 Druid
0512 PUR3*
0521 Druid
0528 Hal
0541 Druid
0562 Druid
0563 PUR3*
0567 Hal
0575 PUR3*
0591 Druid
0596 Cxak*
0598 PUR3*
0607 Druid
0614 PUR3*
0624 Druid
0651 Hal
0658 PUR3*
0666 Druid
0685 Hal
0687 PUR3*
0699 PUR3*
0702 PUR3*
0707 Hal
0720 Hal
0726 PUR3*
0728 Hal
0730 Druid
0739 Cxak*
0748 Zqcym*
0757 Druid
0767 Druid
0772 Cxak*
0773 Druid
0777 Hal
0786 Druid
0803 Hal
0809 Druid
0813 PUR3*
0814 Druid
0819 Hal
0821 Esewdm*
0824 Druid
0828 Druid
0842 Hal
0850 Kwgdyop*
0869 Hal
0885 Zqcym*
0905 PUR3*
0913 PUR3*
0923 Kwgdyop*
0927 Esewdm*
0935 Druid
0940 Druid
0945 Druid
0949 Druid
0955 Narwhal*
0956 PUR3*
0958 Hal
0959 Druid
0964 Narwhal*
0966 Hal
0979 Narwhal*
0984 Kwgdyop*
0986 Esewdm*
0992 Druid
0994 Narwhal*
0996 Narwhal*
0998 Kwgdyop*
0999 Druid

* Note: Made up pseudonyms

Values are taken form https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=507458.40 topic.

[DougM]

If anyone else knows of any more early attributed blocks , please send them my way to add to the list.   Thanks!

...
Values are taken form https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=507458.40 topic.

TheArchaeologist, you rock...thanks you for digging some more up. 
Edit: *sigh*    yet another great thread from 2014 that I hadn't stumbled on before exploring a very similar line of inquiry. 
I will try to absorb it too and build (where I can) rather than repeat/rehash past discussions. Thank you all for your patience and indulgence.

[Kakmakr]

I am continuing to explore the early bitcoin blockchain using blk00000.dat covering 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24 time period.

~~

• 1) extracted 119,965 coinbase transactions from blk00000.dat each mining 50 bitcoins using a single output address (only 73 had multiple so I ignored them for these calculations) using pyblockchain's BlockchainFileReader

Ok, stupid question... You are saying you are looking at 119,965 Coinbase transactions (covering 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24) but Coinbase was only established in July 2011. 

Coinbase has it's own internal database, so I reckon you are not looking at that, but rather data provided by them from the Bitcoin BTC Blockchain for that period?

Can you post a link to your source data please?

[DougM]

I am continuing to explore the early bitcoin blockchain using blk00000.dat covering 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24 time period.

~~

• 1) extracted 119,965 coinbase transactions from blk00000.dat each mining 50 bitcoins using a single output address (only 73 had multiple so I ignored them for these calculations) using pyblockchain's BlockchainFileReader

Ok, stupid question... You are saying you are looking at 119,965 Coinbase transactions (covering 2009-01-03 to 2011-04-24) but Coinbase was only established in July 2011. 

Coinbase has it's own internal database, so I reckon you are not looking at that, but rather data provided by them from the Bitcoin BTC Blockchain for that period?

Can you post a link to your source data please?

  Thanks for taking the time to read the thread! 

Do you mean Coinbase the company founded in June 2012?  If so I was confused about the same thing.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Coinbase_(business)

Coinbase, the company, was named after a bitcoin coinbase transaction:

Coinbase
The coinbase is the content of the 'input' of a generation transaction. While regular transactions use the 'inputs' section to refer to their parent transaction outputs, a generation transaction has no parent, and creates new coins from nothing.
The coinbase can contain any arbitrary data. The genesis block famously contains the dated title of a newspaper article in The Times:
The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

From<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Coinbase>

Here is the genesis coinbase block transaction for example: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b

I got my data from extracting these coinbase transactions out of a copy of the first bitcoin blockchain data file (blk00000.dat)