Isabella García
A long-dormant bitcoin wallet holding 444.81 BTC (worth $50.7 million) suddenly became active on Thursday morning, according to on-chain records. This marks the first transaction from the wallet in nearly 13 years.
At 11:27 a.m. UTC, the wallet initiated an outbound transaction of 137.03 BTC ($15.6 million), blockchain explorer Mempool reported. Of that, about 132 BTC was sent to a new wallet address, while 5 BTC was directed to a Kraken deposit wallet, as identified by Arkham.
The wallet had not moved any funds since November 26, 2012, when it received the exact same 137.03 BTC. At that time, its total balance of 444.81 BTC was valued at just $5,437, according to blockchain analytics platform Onchain Lens.
While the motivation behind the sudden transfer is unknown, the small deposit to Kraken suggests a possible sell-off.
Bitcoin’s Massive Price Surge Since 2012
With bitcoin currently trading near $114,025, the value of the transferred funds has surged by more than 9,300x compared to its last activity, when BTC was priced at only $12.22.
The original “1Q397” address still holds 307.79 BTC (worth $35.1 million), on-chain data confirms.
Bitcoin Whale Activity Increasing in 2024
Dormant OG bitcoin wallets have become noticeably more active in recent months as BTC continues to hit new all-time highs.
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In July, Galaxy Digital facilitated the movement of over 80,000 BTC ($9B) from a Satoshi-era wallet tied to estate planning. The funds, untouched for 14 years, were successfully absorbed by the market.
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Earlier this month, another bitcoin whale rotated billions into Ethereum, converting much of its $5B BTC stash into nearly $4B worth of ETH.
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Just last week, a different dormant address holding 479 BTC ($53M) also came alive after being inactive for nearly 13 years.
