We all knew the Bitcoin halving block #840,000 was going to be big and boy was it ever.
In the days leading up to the most recent Bitcoin halving, everyone was speculating on just how much cheese the halving block would garner. We speculated, did some math, and were actually incredibly close (pats self on back)Our DeGods newsletter → the actual block 🤌
We see that ViaBTC won the halving block and pocketed the now 3.125btc block subsidy + the whopping 37.626btc in fees for the block, a total of 40.751btc or ~$2.6 million.
But ViaBTC made more than just the $2.6 million in total block reward.
This particular block also contained the “Epic” satoshi according to Ordinal Theory & Casey Rodarmor’s proposed rarity index. There are only as many Epic satoshis as there are Halvings, so we had our fourth-ever Epic sat created with Block 840,000.
ViaBTC separated the sat and sent it to the exchange CoinEx where it sold for 33.3btc at auction, netting the pool another cool $2.1 million.
If we combine the 40.75btc from the block reward + the 33.3btc from the Epic satoshi, we get a whopping 74.05btc, or over $4.7 million in total revenue from Block 840,000.
Previously, the title for most valuable block ever went to Block 818,087 where Antpool included a suspicious looking transaction over ~80 btc (many suspect fat-finger or wallet hack), netting them a total $3.4 million. Even with this possible asterisk over 818,087, ViaBTC’s combined $4.7 million earns them the top total revenue earned in a single block…. ever.
The subsequent blocks after the halving were also massive too. Some cursory digging and I’ve counted that 81 out of the 82 most profitable blocks in Bitcoin’s history have occurred post-halving.
Obviously this past weekend was great to be a Bitcoin miner, but fees have already declined significantly and miners are starting to feel the pain again.
Will Bitcoin survive this? Find out next week…
