January 3, 2009, is marked in the history of cryptocurrencies as the day the genesis block of the Bitcoin network was created. This date symbolizes the official start of blockchain operations.

It was then that Satoshi Nakamoto successfully generated the so-called zero block. It included only one transaction, and as a reward for processing it, Nakamoto received 50 BTC.

At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin is around $96,400, so the theoretical value of this reward reaches approximately $4.8 million. However, these 50 BTC remain inaccessible for use: any attempt to transfer them is blocked by the network. Whether this was a deliberate action or a technical limitation is still undetermined.

The reward for mining the genesis block was sent to the address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa. It is believed that other transfers to this address could be spent if Satoshi Nakamoto owns the private key to it.

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After four halvings, the last of which took place in April 2024, the reward for mining each new block was reduced to 3.125 BTC.