There has been a notable uptick in ancient Bitcoin wallets that have sprung back to life over the past few days. the
Just five hours ago, a dormant address containing 28 BTC (roughly $1.8 million at press time) was activated after more than 13 years of inactivity.
On Sept. 24, another Satoshi-era Bitcoin address with 24 BTC emerged from hibernation.
On Sept 22, extremely rare transactions took place. Some of the first Bitcoins in existence were transferred for the first time in more than 15 years. However, it is unlikely that these coins were mined by Satoshi Nakamoto himself since on-chain analysis shows that these coins were not linked to one of the Patoshi blocks.
According to Sergio Dermain Lerner, who discovered the famous "Patoshi pattern," the mysterious Bitcoin creator likely used a single personal computer in order to mine more than 1 million coins. While the actual identity of the Bitcoin creator remains unknown, this strongly suggests that he was a single person.
The latest ancient transaction, which took place earlier this Thursday, is extremely unlikely to be related to Satoshi. However, it did take place when the Bitcoin creator was still active online.
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin community has been busy speculating about the reason behind the recent uptick in the activations of ancient addresses. For instance, @HODL15Capital has suggested that the recent transfers could be related to a hack. However, it is also possible that someone simply rediscovered their password.
Arman Shirinyan
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin