Whale’s Bitcoin Wallet Resurfaces After a Decade of Inactivity
After lying dormant for 10 years, a whale’s Bitcoin wallet has suddenly become active again. On May 6, it made a transfer of 687.33 BTC to undisclosed wallet addresses, sparking speculation within the cryptocurrency community about a potential selloff.
Whale Alert, a blockchain tracker and analytics platform, reported that the Bitcoin whale moved $43.893 million worth of BTC to two different wallet addresses. One transaction involved the transfer of 625.42 BTC, equivalent to $41 million, while the other involved the transfer of 61.9 BTC, valued at approximately $2.89 million at the time of the transfer.
The Bitcoin whale had been inactive since January 12, 2014, when it initially received the Bitcoin. Back then, the cryptocurrency was trading at $917 per coin, and the whale’s entire reserve was worth $630,000. Currently, with BTC valued at $63.8K, the whale has seen an incredible profit of 6,875%.
Interestingly, this reactivated Bitcoin wallet can be traced back to the early days of Bitcoin, known as the Satoshi era, when the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous founder, Nakamoto, was active in online forums. Some wallets from this era are often speculated to be linked to Satoshi himself.
This is not the first time that dormant Bitcoin whales have made significant transfers after years of inactivity. In November 2023, Satoshi-era Bitcoin whales reportedly transferred $230 million worth of BTC following six years of dormancy. Additionally, in August 2023, a Bitcoin wallet containing 1,005 BTC mined in 2010 was reactivated, and the long-dormant coins were transferred to new addresses in a series of transactions. The value of the 1,005 BTC at the time of receiving was just $328.
In previous reports, it was noted that the fifth-richest Bitcoin whale moved over $6 billion worth of BTC to three new addresses after 10 years of dormancy. Furthermore, on April 15, another dormant Bitcoin wallet became active for the first time in nearly 14 years, with the whale moving 50 BTC to Coinbase and making a profit of over $3 million on coins that were once worth less than a penny each.
The sudden activation of this latest dormant Bitcoin whale wallet has raised concerns about a potential selloff. Speculation suggests that the whale may have decided to liquidate a significant portion of its BTC holdings amidst recent price fluctuations. Some traders believe that these wallet awakenings are driven by early miners or buyers looking to make a profit, while others are cautious about the market impact of such large transactions and wonder if more wallets will resurface.
According to a Fortune report, approximately 1.75 million Bitcoin wallets have been inactive for over a decade, collectively holding 1,798,681 BTC valued at around $121 billion. The reactivation of dormant wallets is intriguing considering Bitcoin’s price history. In its early days, the cryptocurrency was nearly worthless, only surpassing the $1 mark in 2011. As a result, many individuals who received Bitcoin may have forgotten about it or failed to secure the private keys necessary to access their wallets.
It is worth noting that not all dormant wallets were lost or abandoned. Survey data from Chainalysis suggests that old wallets will continue to reactivate slowly but steadily until the number of lost Bitcoins stabilizes, estimated to be around 1.5 million coins.
