Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Wallet Holding Over $30 Million Reactivates After 8.5 Years

A dormant Satoshi-era Bitcoin (BTC) wallet with a balance of $30,395,186 has just been reactivated after 8.5 years of dormancy, blockchain transaction tracking platform Whale Alert revealed on Twitter.

Satoshi-Era BTC Wallet Holder Gains 64x

According to WhaleAlert, the wallet owner purchased the bitcoins as far back as 2013, four years after the Bitcoin protocol went live. At the time, the wallet balance was valued at $468,643. This means that the value of the bitcoins in the wallet has grown by more than 64 times compared to when it was acquired.

The investor, who has now sold his Bitcoin stash at a staggering $30 million, would have earned even more if it was sold last week before the black swan event.

Earlier this week, bitcoin plummeted and traded below $26,000, hitting a 10-month low, thereby setting its lowest price this year. At the time of writing, bitcoin was trading slightly above $30,000. 

Crypto Community Reacts

The tweet from Whale Alert sparked a reaction from the crypto community, with some suggesting that the wallet could be one of the crypto wallets confiscated by the US government.

Retail need to realise that the FBI have a truckload of confiscated BTC. This can be dumped on the market at anytime. This is exactly how mass manipulation actually works.

— AJ147 (@AJJAY147) May 13, 2022

Another person said the wallet balance might be from the infamous Bitfinex hack of 2016.

While it is hard to tell who owns the wallet, dormant Bitcoin wallet addresses get reactivated for many reasons, some of which include individuals serving jail time, losing private keys and being unable to recover them until years later, or simply HODL. 

Bitcoin wallets from the Satoshi-era have continued to surface in recent times, a sign that long-term Bitcoin holders always win. Coinfomania reported in June 2021, that a Bitcoin wallet with an initial balance of $1,894 in 2011 woke up to a staggering $11 million balance.

In March 2022, another BTC address that has not made any transactions since 2013 with a balance worth $355,254 at the time was reactivated with a balance of $15.5 million, a 4,254% spike from when the bitcoins were first purchased.