Why would someone send 4 BTC to Satoshi (Genesis block)

[Bitstar_coin]

Just wondering why someone would send 4BTC to the Genesis block which is over $75K.

Here is the transaction
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/6805b175260c47549995c3ff19c3c51596651c26269e9f1b31c243986433a0b7

I understand many want to send a small amount so they can get a piece of history on the block chain but sending over $75K which is pretty much a burn address since most likely it will never get spent is kind of crazy.

Why do you think they did this?

For anyone who holds above 100 btc, burning 4 btc will not give them sleepless night nor sounds crazy to them. Since it is all about getting a piece of history I guess whoever it was is already making history even right here in the forum.
People do crazy stuff all the time, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

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[Cantsay]

My guess is a crazy youtuber to get extra views. Maybe he can even recuperate the funds with the incremental views he gets 

Would be stupid but have seen worse 

I won't be surprised if this turns out to be true because most times when I'm surfing through YouTube to find solutions to some certain issue I do stumble upon some crazy shit that's been done just for the sake of getting millions of views.

And this might just be one of the examples of those crazy shit done by some crazy ass millionaire YouTuber and then they'll use caption like "How I lost my 4BTC to Satoshi" those shit's stupid as hell.

[adaseb]

My guess is a crazy youtuber to get extra views. Maybe he can even recuperate the funds with the incremental views he gets 

Would be stupid but have seen worse 

I won't be surprised if this turns out to be true because most times when I'm surfing through YouTube to find solutions to some certain issue I do stumble upon some crazy shit that's been done just for the sake of getting millions of views.

And this might just be one of the examples of those crazy shit done by some crazy ass millionaire YouTuber and then they'll use caption like "How I lost my 4BTC to Satoshi" those shit's stupid as hell.

I don't think anyone would do this to get Youtube views. Do you know how little Youtube pays people right now. Why do you think so many people are doing sponsorships in youtube videos because the ad revenue is just not too high.

Last time I checked if you got a huge big channel and you get 1,000,000 views you maybe make $2000. So unless this guy got over 50,000,000 views he would only break-even. A few years back Youtube was more profitable but now its very difficult to make any money.  Seems like a waste of time these days. Way too saturated even for crypto content.

[sbrys]

My guess is a crazy youtuber to get extra views. Maybe he can even recuperate the funds with the incremental views he gets 

Would be stupid but have seen worse 

I won't be surprised if this turns out to be true because most times when I'm surfing through YouTube to find solutions to some certain issue I do stumble upon some crazy shit that's been done just for the sake of getting millions of views.

And this might just be one of the examples of those crazy shit done by some crazy ass millionaire YouTuber and then they'll use caption like "How I lost my 4BTC to Satoshi" those shit's stupid as hell.

I don't think anyone would do this to get Youtube views. Do you know how little Youtube pays people right now. Why do you think so many people are doing sponsorships in youtube videos because the ad revenue is just not too high.

Last time I checked if you got a huge big channel and you get 1,000,000 views you maybe make $2000. So unless this guy got over 50,000,000 views he would only break-even. A few years back Youtube was more profitable but now its very difficult to make any money.  Seems like a waste of time these days. Way too saturated even for crypto content.

Attention is an important new currency in society right now so it's still possible 

But I agree it's not the greatest story ever to broadcast. 1BTC would have done the trick also

[_BlackStar]

I don't think anyone would do this to get Youtube views. Do you know how little Youtube pays people right now. Why do you think so many people are doing sponsorships in youtube videos because the ad revenue is just not too high.

Last time I checked if you got a huge big channel and you get 1,000,000 views you maybe make $2000. So unless this guy got over 50,000,000 views he would only break-even. A few years back Youtube was more profitable but now its very difficult to make any money.  Seems like a waste of time these days. Way too saturated even for crypto content.

Obviously it won't be worth the income and expenses if Youtube content is the goal. I don't know what the real reason is either, but I might somewhat agree that it's some sort of tribute from the pope or whoever has most of the bitcoin in his wallet. But for whatever speculation there is, we don't really know what the reason is until the person who sent the bitcoin clarifies it.

Also, the hype about content like this wouldn't last long if those users were actually spending $75K on content alone, but I disagree with why. I tend to think it's either a reward or a mistake on the part of the user.

[digaran]

We are here busting our ass off to find 0.66 in a puzzle challenge and they send 4BTC to a dead man, insanity has no limits.🤣

[Lucius]

We are here busting our ass off to find 0.66 in a puzzle challenge and they send 4BTC to a dead man, insanity has no limits.🤣

Who says Satoshi is a dead man? If you look at the historical facts, it is quite clear that he publicly announced that he was leaving, and before that he made sure that some of his associates would be the ones who would take part of the credit for everything he did.

It is not at all inexplicable to me why some people still send BTC to that address and I expressed my opinion in the previous post - after all, everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their funds. If you need a donation, maybe you can try asking for it publicly and someone will send you more than 0.66 BTC - not so long ago an unknown benefactor donated even 1 BTC to some charity projects

[BADecker]

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Taxation without representation." In the US, you can ask many people if they like the IRS. They will say 'No." But these same people want taxation to continue, because they believe that it is tax money that is supporting the government. And they might be right in some strange way.

Here's the point. Why not pay taxes to the person who made Bitcoin possible? Even IRS taxes are said to be 'voluntary'.

[kryptqnick]

Forgive my ignorance, but if the address (Satoshi's genesis address) contains the unspendable BTC, does is mean other Bitcoins that get there become unspendable as well? Of course, these coins aren't likely to ever be accessed anyway, but, assuming Satoshi is alive and didn't lose access to anything, would Satoshi even be able to use those coins? pooya87 says it's possible, which gives some hope these coins aren't just burned.
IMO, if one has such money to spare, it would be better to donate it to a good cause instead of burning. I don't think it was done by mistake, though.

[darkangel11]

Just wondering why someone would send 4BTC to the Genesis block which is over $75K.

Here is the transaction
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/6805b175260c47549995c3ff19c3c51596651c26269e9f1b31c243986433a0b7

I understand many want to send a small amount so they can get a piece of history on the block chain but sending over $75K which is pretty much a burn address since most likely it will never get spent is kind of crazy.

Why do you think they did this?

For anyone who holds above 100 btc, burning 4 btc will not give them sleepless night nor sounds crazy to them. Since it is all about getting a piece of history I guess whoever it was is already making history even right here in the forum.
People do crazy stuff all the time, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Close, it came from this address where someone had 82BTC in April of 2022. That was 3 million USD.
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/392cd66VNBwUFpGTkKVvkSvDNoBdWyFwVw

The money then went through a series of transactions being sent from one address to another many times a day. Possibly a money laundering operation.

Why did they send some money to Satoishi? Maybe as a gesture of appreciation? Maybe to taint his coins with some of their stolen profits?

[abel1337]

Just wondering why someone would send 4BTC to the Genesis block which is over $75K.

Here is the transaction
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/6805b175260c47549995c3ff19c3c51596651c26269e9f1b31c243986433a0b7

I understand many want to send a small amount so they can get a piece of history on the block chain but sending over $75K which is pretty much a burn address since most likely it will never get spent is kind of crazy.

Why do you think they did this?

This is how crazy rich people spend their money on. I don't think it's an sending error given that it's the genesis block. It's how people make their own history on crypto and how they make themselves seen into articles and news. Maybe the sender wants everyone to talk about him. Like we are doing now, Speculating about why did someone send a hella amount of money to a genesis block which is basically unusable (unless satoshi use it in the future).  Also there's a chance that this is a very old whale who accumulated a ton of bitcoin in it's early stage.

[Vampobit]

Forgive my ignorance, but if the address (Satoshi's genesis address) contains the unspendable BTC, does is mean other Bitcoins that get there become unspendable as well? Of course, these coins aren't likely to ever be accessed anyway, but, assuming Satoshi is alive and didn't lose access to anything, would Satoshi even be able to use those coins? pooya87 says it's possible, which gives some hope these coins aren't just burned.
IMO, if one has such money to spare, it would be better to donate it to a good cause instead of burning. I don't think it was done by mistake, though.

Well, let's clarify something. It doesn't matter if it's Satoshi or if it's me (let's say), but anyone who have the private key that unlocks the genesis block address, can spend the money found in it.

Therefore, if you decide to send BTC there, the only way to be spent, is if someone has the key to this address.

If Satoshi is a person and if Satoshi is alive and if Satoshi owns the key, then they could definetely spend the BTC you send there.

Thus, it's definetely not verified that this amount of BTC is burnt.

If you want to "burn" some bitcoin you can generate an address, send the money there and ELIMINATE the private key that has access to it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Forgive my ignorance, but if the address (Satoshi's genesis address) contains the unspendable BTC, does is mean other Bitcoins that get there become unspendable as well?

No. The coinbase reward from the genesis block is non-spendable. Any other outputs coming from that address can be normally spent.

If you want to "burn" some bitcoin you can generate an address, send the money there and ELIMINATE the private key that has access to it.

That won't be true burning either. First things first, nobody can assure you there won't be another fellow who'll generate the same key. Second, there are about 2^96 different keys, all of which result to the same address. If you want to burn coins, you need to remove them from the UTXO set, using OP_RETURN.

[CryptounityCUT]

I think one of the reasons could be to burn bitcoin, so it can give more value, but this is not necessary to be true because, if the majority of investors will not adopt BTC on long run, this hypothesis has no value.