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Ancient Ethereum Whale Awakens

Mon, 02/21/2022 - 08:02
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Alex Dovbnya
An Ethereum wallet containing over $5 million worth of ETH has been activated for the first time in six and a half years as the second-largest cryptocurrency is struggling to exit a bearish trend
Ancient Ethereum Whale Awakens
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A dormant Ethereum wallet containing 1,947 ETH ($5.1 million) has been activated for the first time since 2015, according to Twitter account Whale Alert.

Considering that the original investment was only $2,336, whoever owns the aforementioned address has made a staggering 220,799% profit.  

It's not clear whether someone had such a high level of conviction or simply discovered a dusty old wallet. It’s also possible that the owner finally managed to unlock his or her Ether after losing access to the crypto fortune.   

Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain, was launched in 2015 in order to decentralize the internet following an $18 million crowdsale that made it possible to fund the project’s development. The project was first announced by co-founder Vitalik Buterin during a Bitcoin conference in January 2014.

The cryptocurrency originally started trading at $2.77 on the Kraken exchange before dropping to just $0.68 due to selling pressure.

Despite the rough start, Ethereum started witnessing rapid growth and exploded in popularity during the initial coin offering boom of 2017, with its price peaking at $1,400.

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The ETH token careened to a minuscule $85 during the 2018 bear market before witnessing an enormous price rally in 2021. The cryptocurrency benefited from the immense speculative frenzy in the decentralized finance sector and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), ultimately peaking at a whopping $4,878 on Nov. 10.

Its price has now retraced to $2,744, which marks a 44% correction.

As reported by U.Today, a Satoshi-era Bitcoin wallet holding $23.7 million was activated in December.
 

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About the author

Alex Dovbnya (aka AlexMorris) is a cryptocurrency expert, trader and journalist with extensive experience of covering everything related to the burgeoning industry — from price analysis to Blockchain disruption. Alex authored more than 1,000 stories for U.Today, CryptoComes and other fintech media outlets. He’s particularly interested in regulatory trends around the globe that are shaping the future of digital assets, can be contacted at alex.dovbnya@u.today.