A Bitcoin wallet that has been inactive for nearly nine years has mobilized more than $29.47 million in BTC. According to Blockchain.com, the address first received 616 BTC on December 10, 2012, and the total amount of Bitcoin in the wallet at the time of purchase was just $6,667.
This BTC, bought nine years ago, remained in that wallet until last Saturday, when it was transferred to another unknown address for more than 4420 times its original value. The $29.47 million transaction was completed for just 0.000001000 BTC – $0.44 at the time of writing. The second unknown wallet to which 616 BTC was transferred moved the entire amount to a third unknown wallet the next day.
Whale Alert, a cryptocurrency tracker, was the first to notice this intriguing move:
“A dormant address containing 616 BTC (29,470,042 USD) was activated after 8.8 years. (It was worth USD 6,667 in 2012)!”
💤💤 A dormant address containing 616 #BTC (29,470,042 USD) has just been activated after 8.8 years (worth 6,667 USD in 2012)!https://t.co/tr6lgToZPO
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 19, 2021
Transactions from long-dormant wallets often attract media attention, as such activities fuel speculation that BTC may belong to Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Blockchain analysts estimate that Nakamoto mined one million BTC, starting with the initial 50 BTC reward for the genesis block on January 3, 2009. Nakamoto’s involvement in the Bitcoin project ended in mid-2011.
Over the past nine years, the long-dormant sending wallet has been observed to receive traces of Bitcoin multiple times, but these transactions are thought to be the result of dusting attacks.
Dusting attacks are attacks by hackers and scammers who send very small amounts of cryptocurrencies (dust) to multiple personal wallets in an attempt to endanger the privacy of wallet owners.
The scammers then try to monitor the transaction activity of the targeted wallets to identify the individuals or companies behind the wallets.
Another reason why the crypto community is interested in dormant whale wallets is; In the past, when large amounts of Bitcoin were transferred from wallets created by miners in ancient times, this caused fluctuations in the BTC exchange rate.
With this latest transaction, Rafael Schultze-Kraft, co-founder and CTO of blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, made a determination that the supply of Bitcoin in general has recently fallen into the hands of its long-term holders.
“Bitcoin supply is maturing steadily in old hands.
Since the $65,000 peak, almost $2 million in BTC has moved from short-term investors to long-term investors.
Supply will not meet demand.
Be patient, hodl(hold).”
#Bitcoin supply has been steadily maturing to old hands.
From the peak at $65k, almost 2 million $BTC have transitioned from short-term to long-term holders.
Supply will not be able to match demand.
be patient, #hodl.
Chart: https://t.co/Dahg2VigyV pic.twitter.com/VdDp8ZZ7Db
— Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@n3ocortex) September 21, 2021