On Sunday, November 17, at block height 870770, a long-dormant Bitcoin wallet created on June 5, 2012 came to life, moving 400 BTC worth $35.7 million. The person behind the transaction may be the same person who transferred bitcoins purchased in 2011 and 2012 just last month.
2012 Legacy Wallet transferred $35.7 million and 200 Bitcoin to Bitstamp, repeating similar transfers last month
Onchain data from btcparser.com showed an awakening: a dormant Bitcoin wallet from 2012 came to life on Sunday, November 17 around 4:30 pm ET, moving 400 BTC. These funds, first acquired on June 5, 2012, were stored in a legacy pay-to-public-key-hash (P2PKH) address. At the time, Bitcoin was trading at just $5.60, making 400 BTC worth just $2,240 at the time.
Fast forward 4,548 days and lock on altitude 870770, and this cache made its first move. The net portion of 200 BTC was sent to the centralized cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, which operates in the UK and Luxembourg. Coins worth $18.14 million were sent to a pay-to-script-hash (P2SH) address identified as belonging to Bitstamp. Meanwhile, the surrender of the unspent transaction output (UTXO) hit the P2PKH wallet, which now holds 351 BTC, valued at $31.8 million at the time of writing.
The transaction left little to the imagination, receiving a “critical” privacy score from Blockchair of zero out of 100. Key privacy violations included matching addresses and the use of round numbers, which flagged the subject as a likely match to the whale that transferred 399 BTC on October 25th. Interestingly, the October transaction also originated from a P2PKH address created on June 5, 2012. .
Previously, 100 BTC arrived in the P2SH Bitstamp wallet. The same whale had previously moved coins from long-dormant Bitcoin wallets created in 2011, continuing a trend that has caught the attention of the crypto community. These movements shed light on the unpredictable awakening of dormant Bitcoin wallets, sparking curiosity and intrigue.
After more than a decade of dormancy, such transactions are leading to speculation about intentions – be it consolidation, cashing out or a mysterious strategy. They also remind us of the vast reservoirs of untapped Bitcoin, each waiting for its moment to surface. According to timechainindex.com, there were approximately 47,786.76 BTC left in unspent rewards across the coin base in 2011 and 11,507.17 BTC for 2012.
Likewise, data from bitbo.io shows that approximately 11,109 unspent Coinbase rewards went unspent this year. These figures indicate that unspent awards for 2012 are declining. Recent activity patterns may reflect a calculated plan, possibly influenced by market dynamics or personal milestones associated with these Bitcoin movements.
