As halving approaches, miners’ first satoshi race: Epic sell!

The fourth halving, the first of which took place in 2012 and reduced miner rewards from 50 to 25 BTC per block, is now very close. The cryptocurrency industry no longer resembles 2008 or 2012. These days, when the value of 1 Bitcoin is more than 60 thousand dollars, investors and of course miners are after 1 satoshi, the smallest unit equivalent to one hundred millionth of Bitcoin. That satoshi that miners are chasing is the first satoshi to be obtained from the first block after the halving… The company that manages to mine the first block will be the winner. So why will they compete for these satoshis?

As it is known, last year, the Ordinals protocol developed on the Bitcoin network emerged and attracted great attention from investors. Thanks to the Ordinals protocol, also known as Bitcoin NFTs, some data was being engraved on these satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. These data, also called “Inscriptions”, also had a value as NFT. Of course, these satoshi on which the data is written have reached a different value.

And the first satoshi of Bitcoin obtained from the block is considered more valuable than others because it carries a special meaning. Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals and who recently released the Runes protocol, also divided these satoshis into groups according to value. These groups are as follows:

• Common ones: Blocks without first satoshi
• Uncommon: First satoshi obtained from each block
• Rare: First satoshi from the first block mined after each difficulty adjustment
• Epic (epic): The first satoshi obtained from the first block mined after each halving
• Legendary: First satoshi of each cycle
• Mythical: The first satoshi of the first Bitcoin obtained from the Genesis block…

Of course, it is almost impossible to reach the “Myth”, that is, the legendary satoshi, because it is certain that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, created this block, and the satoshi of that Bitcoin is currently in his wallet, which has not moved at all for years. it stands.

These rare and categorized sats are still very valuable right now. Recently, the auction house Sotheby’s sold one of these for 160 thousand dollars. Yes, one satoshi, one hundred millionth of 1 BTC, was sold for 2.71 BTC.

Valued at tens of millions of dollars

As seen in the grouping above, “epic sat” or “epic sat”, which can also be translated into Turkish as “epic satoshi”, is called the first satoshi in the first block mined after the halving. This first satoshi is valued at tens of millions of dollars, even though the block has not yet been mined. Some say that this sale should be worth $1 million, some say it should be worth $50 million.

An executive of the US-based Marathon Digital, one of the largest mining companies, recently said, “This is like a lottery ticket” for the epic sell.

Miners can earn extra income

It is even claimed that many cryptocurrency investors, as well as the Ordinals developer company and its teams, have offered to pay millions of dollars in advance to the miners to give them the first sell they will receive if they mine the first block.

In other words, miners’ rewards may be halved, but the miner who will “win the lottery” will be able to earn much more income than they expected.

In particular, assets on the Bitcoin blockchain such as Runes and BRC-20 are expected to attract great attention. Transaction fees coming from here will also be additional income that will go into the pockets of miners.