A self-destructed Frontier-era contract from August 12, 2015, that processed over 520 ETH before being destroyed. Mentioned in the ether.camp launch thread.
Historical Significance
Notable as one of the earliest self-destructed contracts on Ethereum that processed significant ETH value (520+ ETH). The self-destruction pattern and the deployer's subsequent iteration across 3 more contracts on the following day illustrates the experimental, trial-and-error nature of Frontier-era development.
Context
Deployed during Ethereum's first two weeks when self-destruct (SELFDESTRUCT opcode) was a commonly used pattern for contract lifecycle management. The 520 ETH flowing through the contract — worth approximately $520 at August 2015 prices — represents meaningful early adoption of smart contracts for value transfer.
Key Facts
Description
This contract was deployed on August 12, 2015 (block 72,119), 13 days after Ethereum mainnet launch. Despite leaving no surviving bytecode (the contract self-destructed), on-chain records show it processed significant value: an address (0x18e113d8177c) sent 1 ETH, then 10 ETH, then 499 ETH to the contract in rapid succession over approximately 90 minutes. A second address (0xb81a113d2892) sent an additional 10 ETH. The total of 520+ ETH represents a very large sum for August 2015.
The deployer (0x227ca79E7b445f12032e295a64afE0451269BCc3) went on to deploy three more contracts on August 13 — all of similar size (~460 bytes) — suggesting iterative development of the same concept.
The contract gained a minor mention in the ether.camp launch thread on Reddit (August 12, 2015), where user sockpupet attempted to view it on the ether.camp explorer but reported it showed a cat (404 page), consistent with the contract having already self-destructed by that point.
No source code survives. The contract's runtime bytecode is 0x (empty), confirming complete self-destruction.
Heuristic Analysis
The following characteristics were detected through bytecode analysis and may not be accurate.
Frontier Era
The initial release of Ethereum. A bare-bones implementation for technical users.