The first bitcoin (BTC) transaction took place on January 12th, 2009 – when Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of the flagship cryptocurrency, sent 50 BTC to cryptographic activist, Hal Finney.
Finland-Based Programmer Sells 5,050 BTC For $5.02
The historic transaction between Satoshi and the late Finney was registered in block number 170 on Bitcoin’s ledger, and the cost to process the transaction was 0 BTC. In bitcoin’s early days, there were many other transactions that had negligible processing fees or were settled free of cost.
Approximately ten months after the first BTC transaction, Martti Malmi, a Finland-based developer, sold 5,050 BTC for only $5.02 (on October 12th, 2009). This was notably the first known crypto to fiat sale, and it was completed by transferring the fiat amount via PayPal.
In 2009 and 2010, the only way to acquire bitcoins was by mining them and the mining reward at that time was 50 BTC. On May 22nd, 2010, 10,000.99 BTC were transferred by Laszlo Hanyecz, a Florida-based computer programmer, to a bitcoin address belonging to Papa John’s – in exchange for 2 pizzas.
Mt. Gox Exchange CEO Transfers 442,000 BTC
This famous pizza transaction has been recorded in block 57043 on Bitcoin’s public ledger. The 0.99 BTC had been added to the total transaction amount in order to pay the miner’s fee – which were considerably higher at the time.
On June 23rd, 2011, Mark Karpeles, CEO of the now defunct cryptocurrency exchange, Mt. Gox, sent a total of 442,000 BTC to two different addresses via a single transaction. This was the largest bitcoin transfer at that time, until 550,000 BTC was sent in November 2011.
In 2013, a Redditor accidentally entered a very high transaction fee as he noted: “Hi, I entered a transaction fee that was way too high…is there anyway that I can stop the transaction from confirming?” The crypto transfer involved moving only 98 BTC, however, the redditor paid 30 BTC in transaction fees.
Fake Murder Involving Bitcoin (BTC)
Luckily, the mining pool that had settled the transaction was kind enough to refund 7.5 BTC (of the total 30 BTC) to the reddit user. In August 2013, 200 BTC were accidentally sent as a transaction fee, but the amount was also refunded by the mining pool that received it.
Notably, a fake murder involving a large BTC transfer took place on March 31st, 2013 when Silk Road user named Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) transferred 1,607 bitcoins to a user called “redandwhite.” The amount received by redandwhite was in exchange for tracking down and performing a hit on a Silk Road operator that had been extorting users on the now defunct underground marketplace.
However, the hit never happened – and it became clear that the blackmailer and the assassin were actually the same person. But the 1.607 BTC transaction (valued at approximately $150,000 at that time) did take place and notably received 322,639 confirmations.
