ViaBTC, renowned for being the third-largest global mining pool, has embarked on an auction for the scarce "epic sat" discovered during Bitcoin's fourth halving event taking place on April 20. This unique event was unveiled via an announcement on April 23, disclosing the initiation of an auction on the CoinEx cryptocurrency exchange, set to conclude by April 26. The statement elaborated on the particulars, proclaiming: "The auction spectacle of Sat 1,968,750,000,000,000 — remarkably, one of merely four epic sats in the panoramic spectrum of Bitcoin — has now been set in motion!"

The term "epic sat" denotes the original satoshi produced following each halving event, an occurrence transpiring approximately every four years after 210,000 blocks. Bearing immense rarity with only an estimated 32 epic sats in existence, these units bear profound importance within the fabric of the Bitcoin network. CoinEx articulated that bidding for this extraordinary asset would be in Bitcoin, initiating at a base bid of 1 BTC. At the most recent update, the pinnacle bid for this asset stands at 2 BTC, roughly amounting to $132,000, as delineated on the auction's webpage.

An intriguing facet to be noted is the preparatory strategy crafted by Foundry USA, acknowledged as the most extensive BTC mining pool, ahead of the halving event. The company had strategized to leverage the scarcity of "epic sats," vowing to dedicate all proceeds from the halving block towards pool members. Despite these ambitious plans, ViaBTC emerged as the fortuitous pool to mine the block, thereby casting a veiled shadow on whether the firm would allocate the auction profits solely towards miners.

Halving block reward magnification and segregation

Simultaneously, ViaBTC performed an exclusive action of isolating rewards from the mining of the fourth halving block and momentarily suspended payouts to miners. On the monumental day of April 20, the pool pocketed 40.75 BTC, akin to $2.6 million, in recognition of the successful mining of the halving block, resulting in a reduction of miners' rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Noteworthy to mention, 37.6 BTC partook a role associated with validating transactions within the Runes protocol.

As per data extracted from the on-chain system, ViaBTC stationed the entirety of the 40.75 BTC reward into a freshly minted address. In the aftermath of these tactical maneuvers, numerous users of the pool expressed concerns over the apparent void of BTC payout records concerning the halving block on their dashboard by the dawn of April 21. Responding to these apprehensions, a representative from ViaBTC tendered assurance to the users, affirming that the rewards were undergoing meticulous processing and would be expediently finalized.