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The Genesis block and Satoshi's Genesis address
The Genesis block (block 0) was created by Satoshi Nakamoto with a timestamp of 3 January 2009, 18:15:05 UTC. Its coinbase carries a newspaper headline about bank bailouts, and its 50 BTC reward went to 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa — coins that can never be spent.
1Block data
- Height
- 0
- Timestamp
- 2009-01-03 18:15:05 UTC
- Block hash
- 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f
- Merkle root
- 4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b
- Nonce
- 2,083,236,893
- Difficulty bits
- 0x1d00ffff (difficulty 1)
- Reward
- 50 BTC (unspendable)
- Reward address
- 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Balance | … |
| Transactions received | … |
| Value in USD | … |
| Ever spent from | … |
2The embedded headline
The coinbase input of the Genesis block contains the text "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks", the front-page headline of The Times of London that day. It serves two purposes: it proves the block was not created before that date, and it is widely read as a statement about the financial system Bitcoin was designed to offer an alternative to.
3Why the 50 BTC can't be spent
The original Bitcoin client hard-coded the Genesis block and did not add its coinbase transaction to the database of spendable outputs. Whether this was intentional is debated; changing it now would require a hard fork. So the first 50 BTC of Bitcoin's history are permanently out of circulation, although they are still counted in the protocol's issuance total.
4The six-day gap
Block 1 was mined on 9 January 2009 — six days after the Genesis timestamp, much longer than Bitcoin's 10-minute target. Explanations range from Satoshi testing the software privately to deliberate back-dating of the Genesis block; none has been confirmed. Bitcoin v0.1 was announced on the cryptography mailing list the same day.
Related: Satoshi's addresses · the Patoshi pattern · timeline