According to the data provided by WhaleAlert, a pre-mine address containing a total of 2,000 ETH ($5.9 million) was recently activated after more than 10 years of inactivity. Initially, the tokens in question were worth only $620.
In the first 14 days of the 2014 sale, the price was fixed at 2,000 ETH for 1 BTC.
That investor paid exactly 1 Bitcoin (approx. $600 at the time) for that wallet.
Other notable activations
Over the past two months, there has been a notable cluster of "sleeping giant" Ethereum wallets waking up.
On Dec. 1, an address with 40,000 ETH (roughly $120 million) emerged from dormancy after more than 10 years of inactivity. This entity transferred their funds to a new wallet and staked the entire amount on the Ethereum Beacon Chain. Instead of cashing out a 9,600x return, the owner chose to earn yield.
On Dec. 10, a whale sold a total of 850 ETH on Coinbase for roughly $2.8 million. The initial value in 2015 was roughly $263. The reactivation realized a gain of approximately 10,684%.
Smaller transfers to exchanges generally create short-term bearish sentiment due to fear of "OG" dumping. However, this group is shrinking. According to some estimates, only about 600 of these original Genesis wallets remain completely dormant (never touched). Every time you see a "Whale Alert" about transfers of long-dormnat ETH to exchanges, that number drops.
As for staking, the Pectra upgrade has introduced MaxEB (Maximum Effective Balance), which raises the maximum limit for a single validator from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. Whales are likely moving funds now for the sake of consolidation.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team