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An ancient dormant Bitcoin (BTC) address that had been untouched for over 12 years suddenly reappeared today, unveiling a stash that used to look like pocket change but is now worth tens of millions of dollars.
Tied to early payouts from the DeepBit mining pool, the wallet originally received Bitcoin when the cryptocurrency traded at about $109 each. Today, those same coins are worth more than $112,000 per BTC, providing the long-silent holder with a gain of approximately 102,706%.
The transaction history shows it all, especially eye-watering is how modest those early sums appeared. Transfers of just over 4 BTC were logged at values of $439 or $519 — amounts that barely hinted at what they would become.
Now, with 479 BTC in the address, the balance totals approximately $53.6 million — a fortune built on block rewards from being early on Satoshi's creature.
What happens next?
This week's activity from the reawakened investor involved small, probably test transfers, including 0.25 BTC (around $28,000 at current prices), as well as larger transfers of approximately 16 BTC.
Most of the coins have since been redirected into new Bech32 wallets. This factor may suggest that the keys are still in control and that the holder may be reorganizing rather than selling outright.
Such "reawakenings" of Bitcoin OGs are closely tracked because they can indicate an increase in the supply of coins in circulation. However, more often than not, the coins remain in new cold storage.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team