As its name suggests, the Genesis block is the mother of all blocks. Block 1 or Zero is the first unit in this magnificent chain of blocks we refer to as Blockchain. With every Blockchain having its own genesis block, this collection of raw data is the very beginning of that specific Blockchain unit distribution, therefore usually containing enormous amounts of transactions.
While in Bitcoin and some pre-mined currencies the genesis blocks are quite lean due to testing or lack of popularity at the time, in Ethereum and every other legit ICOed coin out there, the genesis block is where all contributors get their initial stake right after the sale when the primary distribution of the coin occurs. In layman terms, the genesis block is the opening shot of a currency career unveiling it before its trading period.
So, what is so special about it you ask? Well, it seems like the Ethereum genesis address which was created in its genesis block has been very busy since it appeared in our life back on July 30, 2015, at 15:26:13. In fact, it was so busy it now holds a modest sum of 850,000,000 American dollars’ worth of Cryptocurrencies.
The almighty 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
To avoid any confusions the Ethereum foundation chose a very distinctive public key to serving as the first sending address of all ETH. As a quick look on etherscan.io shows, on the Ethereum genesis block back in 2015, Ethereum genesis address was responsible for the sending of over 50 Million ETH over 8,893 different transactions during what was then considered the biggest ICO of all times placing ETH on the 8th place on the market cap just before Dogecoin.
Although the fact that back than ETH was only 20 Cents, what is even more amazing is the fact that Genesis address now holds 7,230 ETH valued currently at 3.6 Million dollars and hundreds of other ETH tokens some with actual value adding up to a staggering 846 Million dollars. The following represents the most valuable assets in that address:
1.Revain (R) 515,550,000 Valued at 441M
2.RHOC (RHOC) 129,336,426 Valued at 149M
3.Upfiring (UFR) 791,000,000 Valued at 146M
4.Arcade (ARC) 8,156,390 Valued at 35M
5.Digipulse (DGPT) 3,765,786 Valued at 13M
Apart from the above 5, there are many celebrity coins in the Genesis party, all from the top market cap circle in the likes of: GNT worth of 300K, REP worth of 170K, BAT worth of 125K, DGD worth of 111K and OMG worth of 60K.
See the entire holdings of ETH genesis address - https://etherscan.io/address/0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
How the hell did it all get there?
As you can imagine these kinds of amounts does not just end up in a certain place by accident, well at least that is true for most of it. This mind blowing situation is the result of several events and processes that often contributed to each other and ultimately led to a significant accumulation of assets at this address.
It is not a tip just an unfortunate mistake
For the past few years, we are witnessing an amazing phenomenon. One of Satoshi’s associated BTC addresses, once holding 50 BTC keep on getting small donations considered to be a way of acknowledging Satoshi or tipping her if you like. In fact, that address now holds not less than 67 BTC sent an additional 1,213 transactions to the genesis one. This symbol of gratitude happens as well with the rest of Satoshi’s associated addresses although in a less distinctive way.
Is that the case with the 7K ETH on the genesis address? All signs say NO. Unlike Satoshi, Ethereum founders are known present men, they are more than one mystery figure, their wealth is known and felt, and above all none of them has a clear evidence for not touching their stake. The sad truth is that in the not so long ago past, many Ethereum wallets used the genesis address as the default output address. In that case, if for some reason you hit the send button forgetting to fill the destination, your beautiful ETH were sent to their ancient maker never looking back. The same factor can be associated with many of the high profiled tokens showing in that address. Another sad story is the heartbreaking mistake of a person trying to split his ETC and ETH after the fork ending up somehow with him sending his entire 1,493 ETH to the genesis block…
Take cover here comes the Airdrop
Oh, the Airdrop. One of the natures most amazing miracles, one second you have 0 balance and whoooop money from thin air. As many coins in the past and now days are using this business strategy in order to raise the awareness and market attention of their token, help the distribution and enhancing their token liquidity and secondary market volumes, the Airdrop is often distributed proportionally according to your ETH holding compare to the rest of the market or evenly among all ETH holders. Being the first ETH address out there a lot of these Airdrops ricochets landed on the genesis address.
Burns burns burns the ring of fire
Burning coins and tokens is an act used to ensure a person is no longer holding a specific coin or token. It is done by simply sending your funds to an address no one hold the private keys to and what is a better way to ensure that happens than sending it to an address with 42 zeros. It is a common practice today for ICO projects to burn all their unsold tokens offered to the public during the token sale. This does not mean necessarily that the ICO is a complete disaster and that no trading will ever take place with the tokens. In fact, most of the value in the genesis address actually derives from that exactly. Revain (R) for example managed to sell only 263K tokens ending up sending or “burning” 515K tokens to the genesis address. Being traded now for 0.86$ each, that brings the amount on the genesis address worth of 440M.
Can those amounts ever be recovered?
Although placing a big question mark over the entire burning mechanism it is safe to assume the private key of the Ethereum genesis address exists somewhere and probably is being held in a certain way by the Ethereum foundation. Unlike Satoshi’s case, the presence of the Ethereum founders is relatively known and perhaps they can shed more light on this issue in the future.
Until then we are left with two choices, either wait for the quantum computers to kick in and crack the SHA256 function or we start generating new Ethereum wallets hoping a miracle to happen to show 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 as our wallet. The statistic shows that the amount of possible ETH addresses is greater than the number of sand particles in the entire globe, so I guess you shouldn’t favor those odds and keep focusing on your portfolio.