A Bitcoin wallet that hasn’t been active for nearly nine years just moved more than $29.47 million worth of BTC.
The address first received 616 BTC on December 10th, 2012, when that amount of Bitcoin was only worth $6,667, according to Blockchain.com.
The BTC stayed in that wallet until this past Saturday, when it was moved to another unknown address at more than 4,420 times the original value.
The $29.47 million transaction processed for only 0.00001000 BTC in fees, worth about $0.43 at time of writing.
The crypto tracker Whale Alert first spotted the movement.
?? A dormant address containing 616 #BTC (29,470,042 USD) has just been activated after 8.8 years (worth 6,667 USD in 2012)!https://t.co/tr6lgToZPO
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 19, 2021
Transactions from long-dormant wallets typically drum up media interest because they generate chatter speculating that the BTC could be owned by Bitcoin’s secretive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Blockchain analysts estimate Nakamoto mined one million BTC, starting with the first 50 BTC reward for the genesis block on January 3rd, 2009. Nakamoto’s involvement with the Bitcoin project ended in mid-2011.
The second unknown wallet that received the 616 BTC moved the entire amount to a third unknown wallet the following day.
The long-dormant sending wallet has received trace amounts of Bitcoin numerous times over the last nine years, though those transactions appear to be the result of dusting attacks.
Dusting attacks involve hackers and scammers sending minuscule amounts of a cryptocurrency (dust) to a large number of personal wallets in an attempt to break the wallet holders’ privacy.
The scammers then try to trace the transactional activity of targeted wallets in order to identify the people or companies behind them.
Despite this recent transaction, Rafael Schultze-Kraft, the co-founder and CTO at the blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, says that overall, Bitcoin supply has recently been moving into the hands of long-term holders.
#Bitcoin supply has been steadily maturing to old hands.
From the peak at $65k, almost 2 million $BTC have transitioned from short-term to long-term holders.
Supply will not be able to match demand.
Be patient, #hodl.
Chart: https://t.co/Dahg2VigyV pic.twitter.com/VdDp8ZZ7Db
— Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@n3ocortex) September 21, 2021
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