A wallet that laid dormant for 10.3 years has suddenly sprung to life, transferring all 687.33 bitcoins, worth almost $44 million, on May 6, according to Lookonchain’s latest findings.
The wallet in question had received the 687.33 BTC, valued at $630,000 at that time, on January 12, 2014, when bitcoin’s price was $917 and, interestingly, a time when Satoshi Nakamoto was still on the scene.
Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Wallet Comes Alive
The movement of funds from such decade-old dormant wallets often triggers a curiosity within the crypto community.
The wallet divided its holdings, sending 625.43 BTC to an address beginning with bc1qky and the remaining 61.9 BTC to bc1qdc, as identified by the on-chain tracking platform. This activity, especially from the Satoshi era, invites speculation about its origins. Some believe wallets from this period could be linked to the Bitcoin creator.
A wallet that has been dormant for 10.3 years transferred all 687.33 $BTC($43.94M) out 10 mins ago.
The whale received 687.33 $BTC($630K at that time) on Jan 12, 2014, when the price was $917.
Address: 15WZNLACuvcDrrBL2btDErJggnaMQtHh5G pic.twitter.com/tEPqM0CrrK
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 6, 2024
Despite theories associating these wallets with Satoshi, experts suggest they likely belong to early miners or investors looking to capitalize on bitcoin’s recovery.
Over the past week, BTC has gained almost 4%, climbing to around $65,500 before another retracement took place. Hence, the transfer raises concerns about a potential sell-off, possibly indicating a move to offload a large bitcoin reserve.
Decade-Long Dormant Bitcoin Whale Movements in 2024
As bitcoin’s price surged above $70,000 earlier in 2024, the crypto market awakened several dormant whales. One such entity, who had accumulated nearly 4,300 BTC a decade ago at an average price of less than $30, made their first transfer in over ten years, moving 246 BTC worth close to $17 million in the first week of April.
With an average purchasing price of $29.39 in 2013, this whale’s return on investment (ROI) stood at a whopping 230,000%.
During the same period, another whale purchased almost 114 BTC, valued at $7.85 million, adding to their recent spree of buying that raked in 1,308 BTC since March 6.
A recent study conducted by Fortune and Chainalysis found that there are roughly 1.75 million Bitcoin wallets that have been inactive for a decade or more. These addresses hold a total of 1,798,681 bitcoins, valued at approximately $121 billion as of mid-March. Notably, these “lost” coins constitute about 8.5% of bitcoin’s overall supply of 21 million, with 93% of the total supply already mined.
It is not exactly possible to determine the fate of many dormant wallets, but it is likely that a significant portion of them are permanently lost due to forgotten private keys, especially from the period before 2012 when bitcoin had little value and proper key management practices were less common.