Three Bitcoin transactions from dormant addresses have been triggered after 12.4 years, according to the Whale Alert crypto service, which analyzes huge transactions in digital currencies.
Each of the three wallets contained 50 BTC. The Bitcoin in the three Satoshi-era wallets is now valued at little more than $6 million, according to CoinMarketCap, with the “digital gold” (BTC) trading for $43,681. The wallets have been inactive since mid-2009, at a time when Bitcoin (BTC) was the first and only cryptocurrency in existence.
It could be speculated that the wallets belong to an early Bitcoin (BTC) miner, as the mining reward at that time was 50 BTC per block. It should be noted that in the early days of Bitcoin, a simple video card and a regular PC were enough to validate transactions and mine Bitcoin.
Upon launch, i.e. early 2009, Bitcoin was priced at barely over $0 and could be obtained by mining only. If these wallets are from those initially mined BTC then the miner has made profits by nearly infinite percent. It was only in 2011 when Bitcoin reached $1.
Why are old Bitcoin wallets coming back to life?
As to the reason why these three Bitcoin wallets have sprung to life, it is not completely clear. It could be speculated that the keys to these wallets were lost, until now. If that is the case then there surely must be one (or more) lucky miner who is having the time of his or her life.
The other reason could be that the economic or political situation of the world may have pushed the wallet holder into activity. With cryptocurrencies taking center stage in today’s world, it could be a safe option to bring old wallets online.
While community members speculated over the sudden activation of the address, it wasn’t the first time that elderly hodlers brought their wallets back to life. In fact, in February, we saw an old Ethereum wallet with almost $5 million worth of ETH being activated, in addition to Bitcoin.
Moreover, in March, a dormant Bitcoin wallet with 489 BTC had come back to life after almost 11 years with gains by much as 40,484,400%.