UPDATED: April 15, 2024, 5:40 a.m. EDT
An amount of 50 bitcoins ($3.3 million), which had remained untouched for almost 14 years, was moved earlier today, suggesting a start of trading. Bitcoin BTC
-2.84%
Bitcoin was mined in April 2010, as noticed by onchain analysts Lookonchain, when the mining reward for each block was 50 BTC (nowadays it is just over 6 BTC and is about to drop even lower). The wallet has seen little activity from them, having received only a tiny amount of bitcoin in 2020, generally referred to as “dust”. That changed around 3 a.m. ET today, when a transaction was made moving 17 BTC ($1.1 million) to one wallet and 33 BTC ($2.2 million) to another.
The amount of 17 BTC was sent to a wallet that regularly withdraws funds from the wallet after being sent there. This means it could be a recipient wallet for an exchange. From there, bitcoin was combined with funds other wallets labeled Coinbase on blockchain intelligence platform Arkham and transferred to another address. This suggests that this bitcoin may have been sent to the exchange.
The 33 BTC movement went to a new wallet with no previous activity. It is possible that this bitcoin actually remained in the same wallet of the miner under a new address. This is because the Bitcoin blockchain requires that all funds in the wallet be moved for each transaction, and that any funds that are not supposed to go elsewhere be returned to the same location. This is often done under a new address to make it more difficult to determine which part of the transaction corresponds to the actual movement of funds.
This is the latest recent movement of old bitcoins. March 23, the fifth richest Bitcoin address (at the time) moved bitcoins worth $6 billion to three new addresses. A week later, a Bitcoin wallet that had been inactive for almost 12 years transferred all of its 500 BTC – then worth just under $35 million – to several new addresses.
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About the Author
Tim is the editor-in-chief of The Block. Before joining The Block, Tim was an editor at Decrypt. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of York and studied News Journalism at Press Association Training. Follow him on X @Timccopeland.