ViaBTC launches auction for “epic sell”

ViaBTC mining pool, which earned 37 BTC from transaction fees in addition to the system reward of 3,125 BTC after mining the first block in the halving, started an auction for the “epic sell” it obtained. The company partnered with the CoinEx exchange for the event.

In the statement made by ViaBTC, “The auction for the sat number 1,968,750,000,000,000, which is one of the epic sats available in only 4 in the Bitcoin system, has started. “We agreed with CoinEx Global for this auction.”

While the offers were made in Bitcoin, a total of 9 offers were made as of the time the news was written. While the highest bid was 1.7 BTC, bids started from 1 BTC. The auction will end on Thursday at 19:00 GMT.

As it is known, the Ordinals protocol, created last year, allows some digital content (inscriptions) to be engraved on satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. This situation causes satoshi to become valuable like NFTs. Here, the first satoshi obtained from the first block mined after the halvings is defined as “epic sat”.

Since these satoshis are unique, they are of course considered extremely valuable.

Casey Rodarmor, the developer who created Ordinals, also released the Runes protocol, which was recently implemented with the halving. This protocol, like Ordinals, allows tokens to be issued on the Bitcoin network. With the idea that the tokens issued in the first block would also be valuable, on the night of the halving, there was a serious congestion in the Bitcoin network and transaction fees increased to $ 250.

ViaBTC, the owner of the “epic sell”, earned 40 BTC in just one block from these transaction fees.