Two mysterious Bitcoin wallets, each holding 1,000 Bitcoin, around $61 million, have suddenly come to life after chilling inactive for a decade. They've started moving almost all of their crypto.
One wallet, with the address “16vRq…qjzEa,” moved its 500 Bitcoin on May 12 at 7:10 pm UTC, while the other 500 Bitcoin was sent by the address “1DUJuH…NgfC5” just two blocks later. These transactions were spotted using Blockchain.com’s Bitcoin block explorer. In September 2013, both wallets received 500 Bitcoin each when the price was around $134 per Bitcoin, as per CoinGecko.
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Now, at today's prices, the amount moved is worth 456 times more than what they got them for, totaling around $61.2 million. Since the transfers, one of the receiving addresses from “16vRq…qjzEa” has already passed on the 500 Bitcoin to a bunch of other addresses, while the other from “1DUJuH…NgfC5” is still holding onto its share.
The fact that these two transfers happened so close together caught the attention of blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain, leading many to speculate that the same person or entity owned both wallets. Before these recent transfers, both addresses ranked as the 4,353rd largest Bitcoin whales, per BitInfoCharts.
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Bitcoin Time Capsules: The Surprising Return of Dormant Wallets and Its Impact on Current Prices
A few days back, a wallet from the Satoshi Nakamoto era moved 687 Bitcoin, valued at a whopping $43.9 million, to two different addresses. It's become somewhat of a monthly routine for one of these old-school Bitcoin wallets to stir, but as per a recent Chainalysis and Fortune analysis, there are still close to 1.8 million Bitcoin addresses that have been snoozing for over a decade.
Fortune reported that Excluding Nakamoto's wallet, these dormant wallets hold about $121 billion worth of Bitcoin. While we can't say how much of this is lost forever, these 1.8 million addresses make up about 8.5% of the total 21 million Bitcoin that will ever exist.
There's a lot of speculation about why these dormant wallets are suddenly springing back to life. Some think it might be to cash in on Bitcoin's high prices, while others reckon it could be a move to shift the funds to a more secure noncustodial wallet service provider.
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Source: CoinGecko
Bitcoin's current price is a cool $61,450, marking a 130% surge over the past year, according to CoinGecko. With such eye-popping numbers, it's no wonder old wallets are stirring from their slumber. Depending on how the owners utilize or distribute their newfound wealth, some volatility could be introduced into the market as these long-dormant wallets begin to move.
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