Miners Hunt for First Post-Halving Block Worth $50 Million
The upcoming Bitcoin halving is already different from previous ones for various reasons. One of them is the unexpected fierce fight between miners for the first block mined after the upcoming halving, which contains a rare Bitcoin fragment worth millions of dollars.
A few years ago, the developer of Ordinals on the Bitcoin network, Casey Rodarmor, introduced a system to classify the rarity of individual satoshis, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. Their rarity lies in the fact that the Ordinals protocol implements the ability to sell these satoshis or "sats" as a unique collectible NFT token.
The gradation of the rarity of such tokens depends on the location of sat in each block. In other words, the rarest sat is the Bitcoin fragment mined in the first block. This sat, dubbed "mythic" is held by the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. However, in this gradation, the next rarest is the sat mined in the first block after halving.
This yet-to-be-mined Bitcoin fragment is classified as an "epic sat," and some experts estimate it could be worth anywhere from $1 million to $50 million. Unlike previous halving events, where miners could only boast about the rare sat mined, this time, thanks to the appearance of Ordinals and the possibility of selling the Bitcoin fragment, a fierce race to find such a "golden lottery ticket" has begun.
Miners are stepping up their activity in the run-up to the halving to ensure a high percentage of global hashrate and potentially increase their chances of getting their first block after the halving.
Since the introduction of Ordinals, miners have already been selling the first satoshi of each new block, and they have been valued at thousands of dollars. Previously, Marathon sold one such satoshi for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Other mining companies are also now checking to see if they already own similar rare satoshis and assessing their potential value.
