Whale Alert, a well-known crypto tracker, recently shared intriguing news about a whale that has been inactive since the time of Satoshi Nakamoto but has now sprung back to life, holding a substantial amount of Bitcoin worth millions of US dollars. This previously dormant wallet suddenly became active after Bitcoin experienced a significant drop on Saturday and made a partial recovery.
In a surprising turn of events, a crypto miner from the early days transferred 50 Bitcoin (BTC) that had been untouched for 14 years. This is a rare occurrence as it involves bitcoin from the “Satoshi era,” the early days of the cryptocurrency. The holdings, valued at over $3 million as of Monday, were transferred to two wallets during the Asian morning hours. Some of these transfers eventually made their way to the crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), as reported by analysis tool Lookonchain.
According to blockchain data, the miner received 50 BTC as a reward in April 2010 when the network had just launched. At that time, the value of the cryptocurrency was only a few dollars. This period, known as the Satoshi era, was when Bitcoin’s anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, actively participated in online forums from late 2009 to 2011.
There have been several BTC wallets that have remained active since the beginning of 2023. In July, a wallet that had been inactive for 11 years suddenly moved $30 million worth of assets to different wallets. Then, in August, another wallet transferred 1,005 BTC to a new address. In December, more than 1,000 bitcoins from an early miner were transferred to trading desks and custodian services after 13 years of inactivity.
The cause of the wallet’s resurgence is still uncertain, but it has sparked interest and speculation among the cryptocurrency community. It is possible that a lost or forgotten Bitcoin wallet has been rediscovered by its original owner. Wallets from the Satoshi era are particularly intriguing because they were used when Satoshi Nakamoto was actively involved in the crypto community. These wallets are closely monitored as any activity within them could be connected to early adopters who have chosen to maintain a low profile.
Recently, there has been an increase in the activity of previously dormant crypto wallets that have been inactive for 10-14 years. These individuals hold both Bitcoin acquired in the early stages and Ethereum obtained during the ICO in 2014. Some users choose to sell their long-held assets after ten years to take advantage of the significant increase in BTC or ETH prices. However, in many cases, users are finally able to recover their long-lost private keys.
Over the weekend, Bitcoin experienced a significant drop of over 12% on Saturday, falling from its recently recovered value of $70,900 to $61,970. Some speculate that the cause may be related to recent developments in the Middle East. However, Bitcoin has since made a recovery of over 7% and is currently trading at $66,291. The current global crypto market cap stands at $2.53 trillion, with a 4.73% change in the last 24 hours and a significant 90.73% change compared to one year ago.
Bitcoin’s market cap is currently $1.3 trillion, indicating a Bitcoin dominance of 51.46%. Meanwhile, Stablecoins have a market cap of $157 billion, representing a 6.19% share of the total crypto market cap.
