A dormant Bitcoin address since the time of Satoshi Nakamoto has woken up after 10 years. A Bitcoin wallet containing 687 BTC ($43.9 million) transferred its holdings to two different wallets on May 6.
That wallet transferred 625.43 Bitcoin (BTC) to an address starting with “bc1qky” and the remaining 61.9 BTC to the address “bc1qdc”. The movement of funds from very old wallets, especially from the Satoshi era, often causes curiosity in the cryptocurrency community.
The term “Satoshi era” refers to the time when Bitcoin's anonymous founder, Nakamoto, was active online on forums. Some Satoshi-era wallets are often speculated to be related to Satoshi himself.
One such wallet woke up from hibernation in August 2023 after nearly 14 years and transferred 1,005 BTC mined in 2010. The wallet's actions created a huge buzz on social media, with Many speculate that it is Satoshi's wallet.
However, experts say it is more likely related to early miners.
According to a Fortune report, a total of 1.75 million Bitcoin wallets have remained inactive for over a decade. Many of these wallets hold significant amounts of BTC with purchase estimates when BTC prices were trading in the double digits and are currently valued in the millions of USD.
These inactive wallets contain 1,798,681 BTC worth approximately $121 billion at today's prices.
Over the past few years, many Satoshi-era wallets have woken up and moved their BTC holdings to new addresses. Some of these wallets were also found to have transferred their BTC holdings to cryptocurrency exchanges, which suggests they may want to sell after nearly a decade.
In July 2023, a wallet that had been inactive for 11 years transferred 30 million USD in BTC. In November 2023, three Satoshi-era BTC wallets transferred 230 million USD in BTC after six years of inactivity.
These three wallets are believed to be associated with the same individual or entity as they made their last transaction on November 5, 2017.
