ViaBTC mining pool, which earned 3,125 BTC in system rewards as well as 37 BTC in transaction fees after mining the first block in Halving, has launched an auction for its “epic sat”. The company partnered with CoinEx for the event.

ViaBTC stated, “The auction for Sat 1,968,750,000,000,000 — 1 of only 4 epic sats in the Bitcoin ecosystem — has officially begun! We’re thrilled to partner with [crypto exchange] CoinEx Global for this monumental event.”

While bids were made in Bitcoin, a total of 9 bids were made as of the minutes the news was written. The highest bid was 1.7 BTC, while bids started at 1 BTC. The auction will end at 19 p.m. on Thursday.

As it is known, the Ordinals protocol, created last year, allows some digital content (inscriptions) to be engraved on satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. This causes satoshis to appreciate like NFTs. Here, the first satoshi obtained from the first block issued after halvings is called “epic sat”.

Since these satoshis are unique, they are of course considered extremely valuable.

Casey Rodarmor, the developer who created Ordinals, also recently released the Runes protocol, which came to life with halving. This protocol, like Ordinals, allows the issuance of tokens on the Bitcoin network. On the night of halving, with the thought that the tokens issued in the first block would also be valuable, there was a serious intensity in the Bitcoin network, and transaction fees rose up to $250.

ViaBTC, which owns the “epic sat”, earned 40 BTC in revenue from these transaction fees in just one block.