A dormant Bitcoin (BTC) address, dating back to when Satoshi Nakamoto was still active, has awakened after 10 years. The wallet contains 687 BTC (US$43.9 million) and transferred its contents to two different wallets on Monday, May 6.
Specifically, the wallet first transferred 625.43 bitcoins to an address starting with bc1qky and the remaining 61.9 BTC to bc1qdc. Fund movements from very old wallets, especially from the Satoshi era, often arouse curiosity in the cryptocurrency community.
The term โSatoshi eraโ refers to the early days after the creation of bitcoin, when its pseudo-founder, Nakamoto, was active on online forums. It is sometimes assumed that some Satoshi-era bitcoin wallets are linked to Satoshi himself.
One of these wallets emerged from its slumber in August 2023, after almost 14 years, and transferred 1,005 BTC mined in 2010. It was this transfer that caused the most excitement on social media, with speculation going on about the fact that it could be Satoshi's wallet.
However, experts say it is more likely that they are early miners or buyers simply looking to make a profit.
Wake up an inactive BTC address
According to a report by Fortune, 1.75 million bitcoin wallets have been inactive for more than a decade.
Many of these wallets contain large amounts of BTC that are estimated to have been purchased when the currency was trading in double-digit prices, and are currently valued at several million euros.
These wallets contain 1,798,681 bitcoins, worth approximately $121 billion at current prices.
On a related note, over the past couple of years, many Satoshi-era wallets have been activated for the sole purpose of transferring BTC holdings to a new address.
Some of these wallets were also found to have moved their BTC holdings to cryptocurrency exchanges, suggesting that they could be looking to make a profit after almost ten years.
In July 2023, a wallet dormant for 11 years transferred $30 million in BTC. In November 2023, three Satoshi-era BTC wallets transferred $230 million in BTC after six years of inactivity.
In this regard, all three wallets are believed to be linked to the same person or organization, as they made their last transactions on November 5, 2017.