Virgin Bitcoin

Virgin bitcoin is bitcoin that has come straight from a block reward and has never been spent. Because Bitcoin's ledger is public, every coin's past can be traced, and coins that have passed through hacks, darknet markets or sanctioned addresses can be flagged by blockchain analytics firms. Freshly mined coins, created in the coinbase transaction of a block, have no such history. Some buyers, including institutions worried about compliance checks, have offered a premium for them, and miners have occasionally sold such coins at a markup. The practice is controversial because it treats bitcoin as less than fully fungible: if some coins are worth more than others, the idea that one bitcoin equals another weakens. The term is informal and no standard defines it.