THE 2010 ADDRESS BEHIND OCTOBER 7’S 100 BITCOIN HAD TWO MORE LOTS — BOTH WOKE IN SEPTEMBER — ON OCTOBER 19 PIECES OF ALL THREE PAID ONE NEW ADDRESS WITHIN 86 MINUTES

On October 8 we wrote about 100.02 bitcoin that left a July 2010 address beginning 1J3A7Hov, where its public key had sat on the chain since 2011. That wasn't the only money the address had sent out. On March 17, 2018, in block 513,860, it made two payments of 80 bitcoin each and sent what was left, 63.99997124 and 24.99997124 bitcoin, to two fresh addresses. Those two lots sat still for eight and a half years. They moved on September 21 and 22, 2026, about two weeks before the 2010 coins did.

Then came October 19. In 86 minutes, from 19:07 to 20:33 UTC, all three lots moved again, 169.93 bitcoin in all. Pieces were cut to round sizes: 20, 21 and 1. One address took coins from two of the lines, a 1-bitcoin piece and, half an hour later, a 20-bitcoin piece. Another address, new that day, got 0.1 bitcoin from each of the three lines. It holds 0.29999859 bitcoin and hasn't spent any.

Here's what that does and doesn't show. Anyone running a node can check every step, and two separate explorers, mempool.space and Blockstream's, return the same transactions, amounts and fees. Paying one address from three lots is the kind of link chain analysts use to tie coins to one owner, and it's now public for good. But a shared address can also belong to a service that takes payments from strangers. The chain proves someone could sign for all of it. It doesn't say who.

Most of the coins haven't gone anywhere. Of the 189.02 bitcoin in the three lots, 180.02 sit in unspent outputs as of block 972,529 on October 21. Nine bitcoin from one lot moved on in September. Neither explorer puts a name on any of these addresses, and we aren't guessing at one. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $84,650.