How much is the amount of the first Bitcoin address?

[bitcoiner180]

Out of curiosity: according to mempool.space and blockstream.com, the first bitcoin address (1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa) owns approximately 54 bitcoins and 59886 UTXOs, while according to blockchain.com and bitinfocharts.com, the same address owns approximately 104 bitcoins and 59896 UTXOs.

Who's right?

[Mia Chloe]

I think the difference between what mempool.space or blockstream.com and blockchain.com or bitinfocharts.com is returning for the genesis address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa comes from how they count their outputs. Some explorers like Blockstream and mempool.space only include spendable UTXOs showing about 54BTC and roughly 59,886 outputs, while others  like blockchain.com and BitInfoCharts add the unspendable 50BTC genesis block reward which  adds up to about 104BTC and 59,896 UTXOs.

The genesis block reward is permanently unspendable due to how Bitcoin’s code handles the first block so technically speaking the lower figure ~54BTC  reflects the real spendable balance while the higher one ~104BTC represents the total ever credited to the address.
Check this my old thread.

[Cricktor]

I have no idea why all the "donators" send their coins to the legacy public address representation of the Genesis block's coinbase. Satoshi used only public keys as "destinations" for coinbase subsidies of blocks he mined, but who cares for details anyway.  

Here's the current balance as of writing this post for the Genesis block represented by the descriptor

Code:

combo(04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130b7105cd6a828e03909a67962e0ea1f61deb649f6bc3f4cef38c4f35504e51ec112de5c384df7ba0b8d578a4c702b6bf11d5f)#gvgcz9wt

This descriptor covers all UTXOs sent to P2PK, P2PKH, P2WPKH and P2SH-P2WPKH derivatives of above public key 04678afd...6bf11d5f.



And yes, the 50BTC of the Genesis block's subsidy are unspendable by past and current software rules.


And here's a thread of mine where I post about large donations, cough..., waste of coins to the Genesis block: Large "donations" dumped to Genesis block

[kotajikikox]

I have no idea why all the "donators" send their coins to the legacy public address representation of the Genesis block's coinbase. Satoshi used only public keys as "destinations" for coinbase subsidies of blocks he mined, but who cares for details anyway.  

People likes to be involved. They want to somehow feel important so if they can, they donate here. Maybe they think Satoshi will appreciate their efforts and give back lol. Or maybe they are also just testing the existence of the addresses.

[EL MOHA]

People likes to be involved. They want to somehow feel important so if they can, they donate here. Maybe they think Satoshi will appreciate their efforts and give back lol. Or maybe they are also just testing the existence of the addresses.

I don’t even considered this as a donation because for now as the address is labeled unspendable I think it is the easiest means for people to actually burn their bitcoin except yes the usually OP_Return burning mechanism. We cannot understand clearly why bitcoin is sent to the address most especially when it is even dust amount that most people send, I was to believe that it was actually to keep the address active but rather I will incline with the option that it is a new bitcoin burnt mechanism

[Cricktor]

...

This is not surely burning, because likely a private key exists, if Satoshi hasn't deleted all copies of his private keys. Nothing we can prove, nothing he can prove to us. All coins except the 50BTC from the coinbase tx are technically spendable for the owner of the private key which belongs to the public key I mentioned in my previous post.

Do I believe that at one day Satoshi will move the spendable coins of the Genesis block? No, I don't think so!

Are coins sent to the Genesis block practically immobilized? Very likely, yes!

Are those coins burned? Hm, technically not, practically very likely so!

Is this a waste of coins, a contribution to UTXO set bloat? In my opinion, yes, the latter: in consequence, yes!

[UchihaSarada]

Out of curiosity: according to mempool.space and blockstream.com, the first bitcoin address (1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa) owns approximately 54 bitcoins and 59886 UTXOs, while according to blockchain.com and bitinfocharts.com, the same address owns approximately 104 bitcoins and 59896 UTXOs.

Bitcoin Genesis Block in the Bitcoin Wiki.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

Block reward

The first 50 BTC block reward went to address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa,[1] though this reward can't be spent due to a quirk in the way that the genesis block is expressed in the code. It is not known if this was done intentionally or accidentally.[4][5][6] It is believed that other outputs sent to this address are spendable, but it is unknown if Satoshi Nakamoto has the private key for this particular address, if one existed at all.

You can see the Bitcoin Genesis Block Reward is only 50 BTC
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/blocks/btc/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f

but people keep sending satoshis to this address and so far it has about 104 BTC, remember 50 BTC is unspendable.
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
See the note

This is the Genesis address, it is owned by Satoshi Nakamoto and contains the unspendable 50 bitcoin mined from the genesis block.

This address has transacted 52,301 times on the Bitcoin blockchain. It has received a total of 104.39706467 BTC $11,434,558 and has sent a total of 0.00000000 BTC $0.60 The current value of this address is 104.39705921 BTC $11,434,557.

[Cricktor]

Bitcoin Genesis Block in the Bitcoin Wiki.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

Block reward

The first 50 BTC block reward went to address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa,[1] though this reward can't be spent due to a quirk in the way that the genesis block is expressed in the code. It is not known if this was done intentionally or accidentally.[4][5][6] It is believed that other outputs sent to this address are spendable, but it is unknown if Satoshi Nakamoto has the private key for this particular address, if one existed at all.

Frankly, I'm puzzled to read such an incorrect statement in the first part of above quote from https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block!

The block reward hasn't been sent to the legacy public address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa because such P2PKH addresses didn't exist yet when the Bitcoin blockchain started. Legacy public addresses which are RIPEMD-160(SHA-256(public key)), base58check encoded, were introduced to the Bitcoin node software later. The redeem scripts to spend from a public key UTXO (P2PK) and a legacy public address UTXO (P2PKH) are not the same, the private key though controlling both remains the same. (Although there are 2⁹⁶ private keys which hash to the same RIPEMD-160 hash which the redeem script of a P2PKH UTXO would accept, IIRC!)

The block reward was sent to the public key 04678afdb0fe5548271967f1a67130b7105cd6a828e03909a67962e0ea1f61deb649f6bc3f4cef3 8c4f35504e51ec112de5c384df7ba0b8d578a4c702b6bf11d5f which currently has 9 additional UTXOs which sum up to 0.01008380BTC. Those 9 UTXOs are perfectly spendable, if you had the private key.

[Emjay24]

People likes to be involved. They want to somehow feel important so if they can, they donate here. Maybe they think Satoshi will appreciate their efforts and give back lol. Or maybe they are also just testing the existence of the addresses.

I don’t even considered this as a donation because for now as the address is labeled unspendable I think it is the easiest means for people to actually burn their bitcoin except yes the usually OP_Return burning mechanism. We cannot understand clearly why bitcoin is sent to the address most especially when it is even dust amount that most people send, I was to believe that it was actually to keep the address active but rather I will incline with the option that it is a new bitcoin burnt mechanism

I wouldn't call it burning since it isn't a vanity address and chances are that the private keys of that address still exists but I'm not sure Satoshi would even want to move those coins in the near future if he still has them. I'm compelled to see those sats spent to that address as a form of appreciation to Satoshi for such a wonderful project just as we see here when members send merits to old meaningful posts of which the account owners have been offline for many years.

you can see this account which still got a merit this year after 13 years of inactivity as a perfect illustration

[Cricktor]

I'm compelled to see those sats spent to that address as a form of appreciation to Satoshi for such a wonderful project ...

I disagree that people should show their display of appreciation to Satoshi's Bitcoin in this form. Yes, the immobilized coins make everybody else's coins still in circulation more scarce and thus more valuable. On the other hand, those immobilized coins bloat the UTXO set and burden EVERY node with this bloat. It's like a stain that doesn't go away and what's the point of that?

[EL MOHA]

I wouldn't call it burning since it isn't a vanity address and chances are that the private keys of that address still exists but I'm not sure Satoshi would even want to move those coins in the near future if he still has them. I'm compelled to see those sats spent to that address as a form of appreciation to Satoshi for such a wonderful project just as we see here when members send merits to old meaningful posts of which the account owners have been offline for many years.

What do mean by since it’s not a vanity address? Vanity addresses are not unspendable they also have valid private keys and are just like the regular or normal bitcoin address we have just it’s a custom address, but coins on it are definitely spendable.

I wasn’t also saying that coins Sent to Satoshi addresses are not spendable but was just sayin that people might consider it as a burner account since they don’t see the real owner sending out bitcoin because I don’t think they are sending there for donations. And also not everyone can send as OP_Return

[joniboini]

What do mean by since it’s not a vanity address? Vanity addresses are not unspendable they also have valid private keys and are just like the regular or normal bitcoin address we have just it’s a custom address, but coins on it are definitely spendable.

Maybe he's not actually referring to "vanity address", but a vanity as in useless or futile address. It makes sense considering he's saying that those addresses probably have valid private keys. But yeah, if the goal is to burn the coins, then sending to an address with no possible private key or learning how to burn tx with OP_Return. There's a first for everything anyway.

[BlackHatCoiner]

A few facts to clear up the confusion on why different block explorers display different amounts:

• Genesis block's reward output is unspendable as it does not belong to the UTXO set. No idea why Satoshi configured it that way. He may really hated the idea of pre-mining.
• The "address" that received the block reward from genesis is not really an address, but a public key. So, some coins have been "donated" to the public key (P2PK) while some others in the hash of it (P2PKH). Some block explorers translate the public key as a legacy address (P2PK->P2PKH) and create this confusion.

I have no idea why all the "donators" send their coins to the legacy public address representation of the Genesis block's coinbase.

I believe the serious answer to this, is that 1) it's not standard to pay to public keys 2) it's a lot more complicated to construct such payment with modern bitcoin software.

[Cricktor]

I didn't know (or forgot) that a P2PK transaction might be non-standard. I'll have to dig that out when it became non-standard, if it is so.

Many very early coinbase transactions were P2PK and I always disliked how some block explorers "lied" about their nature and displayed the legacy P2PKH public address as the transaction target. Since some time mempool.space does it correctly and you can even search for public keys same as with public addresses.

... 2) it's a lot more complicated to construct such payment with modern bitcoin software.

IIRC, Bitcoin Core still allows it and Electrum, too. I'm most familiar with those two and haven't tried P2PK with Sparrow or Trezor Suite. I've no real use case for P2PK myself. I definitely won't waste coins to early coinbases or the Genesis block.