From $8,000 to $53 million: Bitcoin wallet dormant since 2012 wakes up

A dormant Bitcoin wallet address containing 749 BTC ($53.2 million) transferred funds for the first time in nearly 12 years on Tuesday morning, according to onchain data.

Data from blockchain explorer Mempool shows that a  send totaling around 159.2 BTC ($11.3 million) was initiated at 7:28 a.m. UTC.

The address last sent 10 BTC (approximately $110 at the time) on Nov. 10, 2012, when the 749 BTC balance was worth just $8,000, onchain monitoring platform Whale Alert noted on X. 

The reason for the transfer and the identity of the wallet's owner remains unknown. However, 124.2 BTC ($8.8 million) of the send was labeled as change by Blockchair, suggesting it was likely returned to the sender in a new address associated with their wallet. The remaining 35 BTC ($2.4 million) was sent to another address that may or may not belong to the sender.

With bitcoin currently trading within 4% of its all-time high at around $71,136, according to The Block’s Bitcoin Price Page , the value of the bitcoin the address transferred has risen nearly 7,000 times since the funds were last moved in 2012.

Bitcoin whale movements in 2024

In July, a bitcoin address that received 1,000 BTC in 2012, worth about $12,000 at the time, sent the funds, then worth over $60 million, to a new address also after nearly 12 years of inactivity. That followed a similar 1,000 BTC whale move in May for the first time in a decade.

In March, the fifth richest address on the Bitcoin blockchain, which had been dormant since 2019, moved $6 billion worth of BTC. In January, nearly 50,000 dormant bitcoin, worth $2 billion at the time, woke up less than a week after spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds were approved in the United States.