A dormant bitcoin (BTC) wallet containing over 1,037 bitcoins — worth $31 million at current prices — suddenly woke up after 11 years of sleep and transferred its entire stash.
The 1037 BTC was transferred at a bitcoin price of $29,956 and went into effect at around 10:51 UTC on July 22 at block height 799701, according to BitInfoCharts.
The long-dormant address received the 1,037 BTC on April 11, 2012, when the BTC price was just $4.92, on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain explained on July 22. That means the stash was only worth about $5,108 at the time.
A BTC whale that has been dormant for 11 years transferred all $1,037.42 BTC ($37.8 million) to a new address “bc1qtl” an hour ago.
The whale received $1,037.42 BTC ($5,107 at the time) on April 11, 2012 when the price was $4.92.https://t.co/k8ZmO5vc8X pic.twitter.com/xBaw2dQfY8
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 22, 2023
Data from blockchain aggregator Blockchair shows that wallet address “bc1qt180…” — which appears to be a new wallet — was the recipient of the $31 million.
According to cryptocurrency pricing platform CoinGecko, the original Bitcoin wallet balance hit its peak price of $71.6 million on Nov. 10, when BTC reached its all-time high of $69,044.
The US government has been one of the biggest BTC players lately, transferring nearly 10,000 BTC worth $299 million in a series of transactions on July 12 in connection with the Silk Road confiscation.
It is not clear if the transactions were sent to cryptocurrency exchanges or if they remain in the custody of the Justice Department.
More mysterious wallet movements
On June 11, another mysterious Bitcoin whale transferred 1,400 BTC — worth $36 million at the time — to a Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) address. CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju believes the motive behind this transaction may have been privacy enhancement.
In early April, another Bitcoin address transferred 2,071 BTC — worth $60 million — almost a decade after catching BTC at $663, according to Lookonchain.
Three months earlier, a massive transfer of 26,056 BTC, worth $250 million, was made from another bitcoin address. At BTC’s all-time high, the wallet was worth more than $1 billion.
Related: Bitcoin’s cloudy price action spurs buying interest in LINK, FIL, SNX, and THETA
According to a chart by on-chain analytics firm Glassnode and shared by cryptocurrency researcher Will Clemente, despite some high-quality transfers, over 55% of BTC hasn’t moved in over two years:
Dormant bitcoin is the best #bitcoin
By @WClementeIII
https://t.co/RwcCWOdIod
— Miklos Denkler (@MiklosDenkler) July 23, 2023
The price of BTC is currently at 30,082. Although Bitcoin’s price has increased by 81.8% in 2023, it is still 56.4% below its all-time high set in November 2021, according to CoinGecko.
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