Bitcoin’s halving may have halved the rewards paid to miners, but the fierce battle for block space has resulted in millions of dollars in payouts to miners as the halving begins.
In fact, with the exception of what appears to have been an accidental $3 million overpayment last November, as first pointed out by It was mined after the halving. Mined. The first halving block took near the top spot, earning $2.6 million in fees and block rewards alone, while other blocks were worth $1.3 to $2 million.
Unlike the overpayment, which still remains Bitcoin’s most valuable block, post-halving transactions were a deliberate attempt to free up valuable block space.
For example, miners of the first block upon halving will be entitled to one of four so-called “epic sats”, or satoshis, which are units of Bitcoin engraved with specific data. Created once every half-life, the Epic Sat is 100 times rarer than the “Rare Sat” that sold for more than $100,000 as part of a Sotheby’s auction. Bitcoin Ordinals The first mined since the protocol was invented, this epic Sat may also be the first to be sold.
Also at stake is Runes, a new protocol for recording data on the Bitcoin blockchain. According to Arkham, the first runes were distributed as airdrops to holders of certain Ordinals collections for $430,000, with others also paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to distribute their own collections.
In total, nine of the top ten most valuable blocks in Bitcoin history were mined immediately after the halving. Previously, the second most valuable Bitcoin block was also the result of Paxos’ $500,000 “fat finger” error. However, those fees were returned by the mining pool that facilitated the transaction.
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