11/17/2014

TIL: Where the Bitcoins at… Mysteries of the Blockchain


I love both the transparency and the pseudonymity that bitcoin provides, so I thought I’d take a gander at the blockchain and see what there was to see.


There are a couple sites that list the “100 richest addresses”, but I’m a curious guy and a bit of a data junky and wanted to see what else the blockchain could reveal.


A little PHP, a current bitcoin node with the full transaction index, a MySQL database, 5 days(!) of processing time on a server and I now have every single unspent output in the blockchain in my DB.


An unspent output is essentially a transaction to a public addresses that not been spent, i.e. has a balance.


I started with the genesis block (#1) and followed the coins all the way up to today. The data is not perfect, there were some transactions I simply could not parse that were either null or non-standard.


Here is some of what I learned as of block 330,433 (Monday November 17th, 2014):


There are currently 14,104,525 unspent outputs in 3,609,649 unique address.


Zero value transactions:


There are 3,393 unspent outputs that contain 0.00000000, this is curious because obviously you cannot spend a 0 balance. In looking at the transactions many of the early ones include a high fee, and then sent 0 BTC to many addresses, talk about blockchain spam and bloat… The first occurrence was in block 82,627 and the latest was in block 329,151.


Here is an example of an early one that simply looks like some kind of spam attack on the network, these stopped occurring so I assume someone fixed it: link to blockchain.info


Here is one of the more recent ones, it only sends 0 BTC to a single address, but its still an unspent output that is worthless: link to blockchain.info


Perhaps someone with more knowledge then I can shed some light on these…


1 Satoshi Multisig:


There are 16,848 multisig addresses with a 0.00000001 balance. Why? who knows… example: link to blockchain.info


Total of 1 Satoshi addresses:


There are 732,959 addresses with a 1 satoshi balance totaling 0.00732959 BTC


Untouched early mining income:


In the early days of mining using the bitcoin client each 50 BTC mining reward (when 0 transaction fees were included) would go to a unique address, there are still 39,228 transactions with an unspent 50 BTC balance, thats 1,961,400 Bitcoin. Some of these are not newly generated coins, simply a transaction containing 50 BTC, however the vast majority are old mining income. Many of these probably belong to Satoshi… example: link to blockchain.info


Broken addresses:


There are 326 addresses with a balance where the address is “non standard”, a non standard address is one that cannot be decoded by the bitcoin core, and most likely can never be spent again.


Total non standard unspent outputs = 2,614.256208 BTC example: link to blockchain.info


Many 1’s:


There are 531 transactions going to a very unique address: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 link to blockchain.info (many of them with advertisement like notes)


While this is a valid address it is very likely that no individual has the private key for it, and the 2.98804915 BTC in it can never be spent


A selection of other unique addresses that are valid and contain a balance, but most likely no one has the key for:



  • 1BitcoinKicksAss1111111111114BbAUx

  • 11111111111111111111BZbvjr

  • 12TisTrueWithoutALie22222221wT3qjn

  • 1CertainAndMostTrue2222222225YPnJF

  • 12ThatWhich1sBe1ow1sAs222221y3G7mv

  • 12ToPerformTheMirac1es222221zShqDE

  • 12ofThe1Thing222222222222221wv1hge

  • 1AndAsA11ThingsWereFromThe1xxdJJ2U

  • 1ByMeansofTheMeditation22221xJd9GS

  • 12ofThe1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxy1aqzJW

  • 12ThusA11ThingsWereBornFrom2vX3xAk

  • 191tsFather1sTheSun2222222225iM4gY

  • 191tsMother1sTheMoon22222221z3BtXD

  • 12TheWindCarried1t1n1tsBe11y31r5NB

  • 191tsNurse1sTheEarth22222221zkkvAq

  • 12TheFatherofTheWho1eWor1d2249xs5g

  • 191sHereXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXo72uqJv

  • 12YouWi11SeparateTheEarth2223tzWxE

  • 1FromTheFire11111111111111113MzD3d

  • 13Sweet1yWithGreatSki11x3332wyNKnf

  • 12oXoXoXofTheWho1eWor1dXoXoXhjQBMS

  • 1F1eeFromYou21111111111111111t6TRM

  • 1Phi1osophyofTheWho1eWor1d5547QMgV

  • 191t1sFinishedWhat1HaveSaid539kgve


The nitty gritty:



  • 424,925 transactions with a single output over 1 BTC

  • 122,093 transactions with a single output over 10 BTC

  • 11,403 transactions with a single output over 100 BTC

  • 1,102 transactions with a single output over 1,000 BTC

  • 53 transactions with a single output over 10,000 BTC

  • 0 transactions with a single output over 100,000 BTC


Some more:



  • 732,959 transactions where exact output = 0.00000001 BTC

  • 84,155 transactions where exact output = 1 BTC

  • 13,946 transactions where exact output = 5 BTC

  • 13,438 transactions where exact output = 10 BTC

  • 2,683 transactions where exact output = 25 BTC

  • 39,228 transactions where exact output = 50 BTC

  • 5,358 transactions where exact output = 100 BTC

  • 866 transactions where exact output = 500 BTC

  • 485 transactions where exact output = 1,000 BTC

  • 27 transactions where exact output = 2,500 BTC

  • 50 transactions where exact output = 5,000 BTC

  • 30 transactions where exact output = 10,000 BTC

  • 7 transactions where exact output = 20,000 BTC

  • 1 transactions where exact output = 30,000 BTC

  • 1 transactions where exact output = 100,000 BTC


Largest single unspent output: 100,000 BTC


Balance: link to blockchain.info


Transaction: link to blockchain.info


10 Richest Addresses:



  • 1i7cZdoE9NcHSdAL5eGjmTJbBVqeQDwgw - 144,341.54672136

  • 13Df4x5nQo7boLWHxQCbJzobN5gUNT65Hh - 134,173.14791082

  • 1JEC8vYP9cEDSu6N6DXkkYd3RaeWAdsCqN - 120,223.31441612

  • 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF - 79,957.10818636

  • 1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbhx - 69,471.10124134

  • 1PnMfRF2enSZnR6JSexxBHuQnxG8Vo5FVK - 66,452.06330135

  • 1AhTjUMztCihiTyA4K6E3QEpobjWLwKhkR - 66,378.80759963

  • 1EBHA1ckUWzNKN7BMfDwGTx6GKEbADUozX - 66,233.73540359

  • 1DiHDQMPFu4p84rkLn6Majj2LCZZZRQUaa - 66,141.88463485

  • 194DnvmLR2HULRvxUsVag8mn2fm7dA3U2B - 66,112.30181684


There is a lot more to be discovered, but that’s it for now.


If there is anything you would like to know about unspent transactions just ask, if your question can be expressed as SQL I’ll do my best to get you an answer…


I’m considering keeping the database updated in real time and publishing some or all of this on my website, http://ift.tt/14zHrcI would that interest you?







Submitted November 17, 2014 at 05:54PM by CoinCadence http://ift.tt/1EVjsBq