From $8,000 to $53 million: Bitcoin wallet dormant since 2012 wakes up
2024-10-29

A dormant Bitcoin wallet address containing 749 BTC ($53.2 million) transferred funds for the first time in nearly 12 years on Tuesday morning, according to onchain data.
Data from blockchain explorer Mempool shows that a send totaling around 159.2 BTC ($11.3 million) was initiated at 7:28 a.m. UTC.
The address last sent 10 BTC (approximately $110 at the time) on Nov. 10, 2012, when the 749 BTC balance was worth just $8,000, on-chain monitoring platform Whale Alert noted on X. 
The reason for the transfer and the identity of the wallet's owner remains unknown. However, 124.2 BTC ($8.8 million) of the send was labeled as change by Blockchair, suggesting it was likely returned to the sender in a new address associated with their wallet. The remaining 35 BTC ($2.4 million) was sent to another address that may or may not belong to the sender.
With bitcoin currently trading within 4% of its all-time high at around $71,136, according to The Block’s Bitcoin Price Page, the value of the bitcoin the address transferred has risen nearly 6,500 times since the funds were last moved in 2012.
Bitcoin whale movements in 2024
In July, a bitcoin address that received 1,000 BTC in 2012, worth about $12,000 at the time, sent the funds, then worth over $60 million, to a new address also after nearly 12 years of inactivity. That followed a similar 1,000 BTC whale move in May for the first time in a decade.
In March, the fifth richest address on the Bitcoin blockchain, which had been dormant since 2019, moved $6 billion worth of BTC. In January, nearly 50,000 dormant bitcoin, worth $2 billion at the time, woke up less than a week after spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds were approved in the United States.
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