An ancient wallet containing 50 Bitcoins has been activated for the first time in almost 12 years
According to Whale Alert, an ancient wallet containing 50 Bitcoins has been activated for the first time in nearly 12 and a half years. Wallet dates back to the first year of Bitcoin’s existence, fueling speculation about its owner.
💤 A dormant address containing 50 #BTC (2,165,186 USD) has just been activated after 12.4 years!https://t.co/l4nWRMAz66
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 7, 2022
Satoshi-Era Bitcoin wallet activated after more than 12 years
The block was mined on November 22, 2009, just a few months after the first Bitcoin transaction in January 2009. Back then, Bitcoin was essentially worthless because no exchanges existed at that time. The earliest adopters will send Bitcoin as a hobby without expecting to make tons of cash.
The wallet was created even before the famous programmer Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 BTC ($435 million at press time) to buy two pizzas in May 2010. Bitcoin finally reached parity with the US dollar only on February 8, 2011.
Whoever received these coins later managed to turn them into a $2.1 million fortune.
Although the address was created when Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, was still active in the community, he is unlikely to be behind the transfer.
The most obvious explanation is that someone has finally found his private key to a multi-million dollar Bitcoin vault. Some also speculated that the address owner reactivated the wallet after being released from prison.
There have been numerous cases of old Bitcoin wallets being activated for the first time over the past few months. However, it is pretty rare to see untapped coins going back to Bitcoin’s first year of being moved back.
In May 2020, the price of Bitcoin fell after Whale Alert was informed that coins from a wallet believed to be owned by Satoshi showed signs of coming back to life. However, it later turned out that the transfer was not linked to the Bitcoin creator.
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