Two long-dormant Bitcoin whale wallets, holding a total of 1000 BTC valued at $61 million, have suddenly come alive after 10 years.
Two mystery Bitcoin whale wallets, holding a combined total of one thousand Bitcoins valued at $61 million, have unexpectedly revived after a 10 years slumber, transferring out practically every single satoshi.
Wallet address “16vRq…qjzEa” sent out its 500 Bitcoin at block 843,131 on May 12 at 7:10 pm UTC, while message “1DUJuH…NgfC5” sent out the other 500 Bitcoin two blocks later, according to Blockchain.com’s Bitcoin block explorer. Both transactions took place on May 12.
The wallets each received 500 Bitcoin on September 12 and September 13, 2013, when the price of Bitcoin was $134, as reported by CoinGecko. Given the current state of the market, the transferred total is now worth $61.2 million, 456 times more than the purchase price.
Following transaction completion, one of the receiving addresses from “16vRq…qjzEa” has already sent the 500 Bitcoin to a number of other recipients, whereas the receiver from “1DUJuH…NgfC5” is still in possession of its 500 Bitcoin.
The inbound and outbound transfers’ proximity prompted blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain to pair the two transactions together. The proximity of the financial transactions leads observers to assume that the two wallets belonged to the same person or entity.
Bitcoin Whales Stir
BitInfoCharts reports that prior to the transfers, the two addresses equaled the 4,353rd largest Bitcoin whales. This was the case before the move. A Bitcoin whale wallet that Satoshi Nakamoto created just over a week ago transferred 687 bitcoins, or $43.9 million, to two different addresses.
Chainalysis and Fortune conducted a recent analysis revealing that approximately 1.8 million Bitcoin addresses have lain dormant for over a decade. This is despite the fact that at least one of these early-day Bitcoin whale wallets tends to wake up each month.
Fortune reports that these wallets, excluding Nakamoto’s billfold, hold roughly 121 billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin. Despite the fact that it is impossible to determine how much of the 21 million bitcoins will ever exist, the 1.8 million addresses represent 8.5% of them.
People frequently believe that dormant wallets might be waking up to sell Bitcoin at an appropriate time. Others say that it might be possible to transfer the assets to a different address, possibly under the supervision of a noncustodial wallet service provider that offers a higher level of security.
According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin’s price is currently $61,450 and has increased by 130% over the previous year.