WalletsSatoshi Nakamoto's wallet

Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet

Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet is best known by one address, the genesis address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa, which received Bitcoin's first 50 BTC block reward on January 3, 2009 and has never sent a coin. Today it has received 57.71 BTC in total across 67,474 transactions, according to mempool.space.

By Onchain Wiki editors · checked November 9, 2026, 11:17 UTC

The Satoshi Wallet Address From the Genesis Block

The Satoshi wallet address most people mean is the one paid by the genesis block, block 0 of Bitcoin, which mempool.space dates to January 3, 2009 at 18:15:05 UTC.² Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, mined that block, and its reward went to the address shown above.

The address is public, so anyone can watch it. The live record on mempool.space's genesis address page shows 57.71 BTC received over 67,474 transactions and zero spent outputs at this check. Almost all of that came later, sent by other people. The genesis block page covers the block itself in more depth.

Why the Genesis Block's 50 BTC Cannot Be Spent

The genesis block's 50 BTC cannot be spent because Bitcoin's software never adds that block's transaction to its record of spendable coins. In Bitcoin Core, the code that connects each new block has a special case for the genesis block that skips its transactions, with a comment saying its coinbase is unspendable.³

A coinbase is the transaction that pays a block's reward. Since the genesis coinbase is not in the set of unspent outputs, no node would accept a transaction trying to spend it, even one signed with the right key. The Bitcoin Wiki's genesis block entry calls it a quirk in how the block is written into the code, and says no one knows whether that was intended.

Coins sent to the same address later are different. The Bitcoin Wiki says those later outputs are believed to be spendable by whoever holds the key. None have moved.

The Genesis Block Message in Satoshi's First Block

The genesis block message is a newspaper headline that Satoshi placed inside the block's coinbase: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". The Bitcoin Wiki reads it as proof that the block was made on or after January 3, 2009.

The next block came almost six days later. mempool.space dates block 1 to January 9, 2009 at 02:54:25 UTC, a long gap compared with the ten-minute target that later blocks follow.

How Much Bitcoin Satoshi Owns: The Estimates

How much bitcoin Satoshi owns is an estimate, not a balance anyone can read, because Satoshi's early coins sit across thousands of separate block rewards rather than in one wallet. The best-known estimate comes from researcher Sergio Demian Lerner, who found a repeating pattern in the data of early blocks, now called the Patoshi pattern, that points to a single miner.

In April 2013, Lerner counted 19,600 blocks on the pattern, or 980,000 BTC, refining his first rough figure of about 1 million.⁵
In April 2019, with a more exact method, he put the figure close to 1.1 million BTC from about 22,000 blocks, and wrote that 99.9% of those blocks are unspent.⁶
The same 2019 post cites BitMEX Research, which estimated about 700,000 coins mined by Satoshi in 2009 and 2010.

The pattern links blocks to one mining setup. Linking that setup to Satoshi is the widely held reading, not a proof. The biggest bitcoin holders page shows how the estimate compares with Strategy, the ETFs and governments.

Has Satoshi's Bitcoin Ever Moved

Satoshi's bitcoin has never moved from the genesis address: mempool.space shows zero spent outputs for it at this check. For the wider set of coins, Lerner's 2019 analysis found 99.9% of the blocks on the Patoshi pattern still unspent.

Whether the keys still exist cannot be read from the chain; only a signed transaction would show it. The lost bitcoin page covers how coins that never move are counted in supply estimates.

Questions People Ask About Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet

These are the questions people ask next about Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet.

What is Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet address?

Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet address that most people cite is the genesis address, 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa, which received the first block reward. Satoshi's other early coins sit at thousands of separate addresses from early block rewards, attributed by research rather than labels.

How much bitcoin is in the genesis address?

The genesis address has received 57.71 BTC in total across 67,474 transactions, according to mempool.space at this check. The first 50 BTC of that can never be spent, and nothing sent there since has been spent either.

Why do people send bitcoin to Satoshi's address?

People send bitcoin to Satoshi's address for their own reasons, and the chain records only the payments: mempool.space counts 67,474 transactions to it. Those coins are ordinary outputs that only the key holder could spend, and none have moved.

How many bitcoins does Satoshi have?

Satoshi has about 1.1 million bitcoins by the 2019 estimate of researcher Sergio Demian Lerner, based on a mining pattern in early blocks. BitMEX Research put it nearer 700,000. Both are estimates of mined coins, not a confirmed balance.

Sources

Every number on this page comes from these sources, checked November 9, 2026.