A virgin Bitcoin is a freshly mined coin that has never been moved or spent since it was created as a mining reward. These coins come straight from the blockchain with no transaction history.
Every time a new block is mined, the Bitcoin network creates a block reward (the base reward + transaction fees). That full reward starts as virgin coins because they are newly created by the blockchain. That reward goes directly to the miner’s address as a coinbase transaction.
Yes — a virgin Bitcoin can represent less than the total block reward.
If the miner who mined the block creates a coinbase transaction with multiple UTXO outputs, which means that several Virgin UTXOs are created whose total value equals the full block reward + transaction fees. The size of these smaller UTXOs depends on the miner and how they chose to divide them.
| Scenario | Description | Virgin? |
|---|---|---|
| Full block reward remains in the miner’s address | Entire reward untouched | YES |
| The block reward is split. Miner creates a coinbase transaction with multiple UTXOs outputs | Reward is split and untouched | YES |
| Miner sends part of the reward directly from the coinbase transaction | A portion of the reward is being spent for the first time. These funds will receive 1 hop. | NO |
| Mining pool pays users from a separate wallet | Coins have already been moved once | NO |
Hop is a blockchain analysis term that tracks how many transactions a coin has passed through.Every time a specific Bitcoin (UTXO) is used in a transaction, it makes a hop — one transaction step along the blockchain. A virgin coin has 0 hops. After the first transfer, it becomes a 1-hop coin, and so on.
Yes, we believe that Bitcoins with 2 or less hops are still very clean and can be considered as premium Bitcoins.
If a transaction includes multiple input UTXOs, we assign the transaction the maximum number of hops among them. This means that if we’re offering a UTXO with 2 hops, it can contain some funds with 1 hop and some with 2 hops.
No, all bitcoins are identical on the blockchain. The term “virgin” only refers to transaction history, not the coin’s function. The Bitcoin protocol doesn’t mark coins as clean, virgin, or dirty — those labels are only used off-chain for record-keeping or compliance checks.
You can trace a coin’s movement using a blockchain explorer. To check hop count: