- Bitcoin wallets from the Satoshi era that had been dormant since 2009 have just moved 250 BTC to new wallet addresses.
- Five wallets each transferred their BTC in 50-coin batches.
- Bitcoin’s price was around $63,500, and it traded above $64,000 on some major exchanges.
Several Bitcoin (BTC) mining wallets that had been inactive for more than 15 years suddenly woke up and moved a total of 250 BTC — worth over $15 million — to new addresses.
These so-called “Satoshi-era” wallets are mining addresses created during the period when Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was actively mining BTC.
The wallets date back to 2009, and five of them each moved 50 BTC to new addresses. On-chain tracker Whale Alert highlighted each of the five 50 BTC wallet movements on September 20.
Collectively, the five wallets moved coins valued at approximately $15.9 million into new wallets.
💤 A dormant address containing 50 #BTC (3,182,908 USD) has just been activated after 15.6 years!https://t.co/rVRMOiMAfP
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 20, 2024
On-chain analyst Lookonchain shared a screenshot of Whale Alert’s post about the dormant coin movements. In each case, the mining addresses received BTC as block rewards back in 2009.
None of these wallets had transacted since their initial activity. Notably, none of the newly funded addresses have moved coins to a cryptocurrency exchange as of this writing.
Earlier instances of long-dormant wallets reactivating have occurred this year and previously: in March 2024 a wallet dormant for over 12 years moved 500 BTC, and in April 2023 another wallet inactive for more than a decade became active.
Bitcoin Price
The movement of these Satoshi-era BTC wallets coincides with Bitcoin’s price recovering above $64,000 following the market reaction to this week’s Federal Reserve rate cut.
Bitcoin has struggled at times over recent months, dropping below $50,000 on August 5, 2024. Crypto analyst Ali Martinez commented on the outlook, suggesting that traders may look to take profits at current price levels.
The TD Sequential told you to buy #Bitcoin at $57,400, and now it is telling you to book some profits at $63,700! pic.twitter.com/0h1yNowkae
— Ali (@ali_charts) September 20, 2024
BTC briefly reached $64,140 on Coinbase early Friday, September 20, 2024, but was trading at approximately $63,513 at the time of writing.