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In a plot twist that could be straight out of a crypto thriller, Bitcoin wallets belonging to early miners suddenly sprang back to life on Friday, moving those coins after laying dormant since 2009.
Bitcoin mined only weeks after the blockchain’s launch in January 2009 by the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto indicates that the wallets belong to people present during its inception.
The recent activations coincided with a notable Bitcoin price rally. The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap has managed to reclaim the $63,000 level on the heels of the Fed’s rate cut.
Dormant 2009 BTC Wallets Resurface
Whale Alert, a platform that tracks enormous crypto transactions, flagged the reactivation of five Bitcoin miner wallets that had been dormant for 15 years on X. Each of the wallets received 50 BTC as block rewards back in 2009. As you may already know, Bitcoin was born on Saturday, January 3, 2009, and it took over a week before the first BTC transaction was actually sent.
According to blockchain data, one wallet received the reward on Jan. 29, 2009, while three wallets received the 50 BTC a few days later, on Jan. 31, 2009. The last wallet received its reward on Feb. 2, 2009. It is unknown whether these wallets belong to the same person or entity.
What remains crystal clear is that the total 250 Bitcoins were not worth anything after they were mined. But, the alpha crypto ultimately hit the $1 mark in 2011 at the now-collapsed digital asset exchange Mt. Gox. Months later, Nakamoto disappeared from online forums. The coins are now worth approximately $16 million at Bitcoin’s current price of $63,600.
The 250 BTC were moved to new wallets in the span of an hour. However, as of publication time, the Bitcoins had not been transferred to crypto exchanges.
Speculation Arises Within Crypto Community
The precise explanations for the wallets’ sudden revival remain unclear, sparking speculation within the crypto community.
Some users believe it could be Satoshi Nakamoto returning to the crypto scene he created. Others link the wallets to computer scientist and Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney — who was the first person to receive BTC on the network. Satoshi made a direct transfer of 10 BTC to Hal on Jan. 12, 2009.
Other crypto community members simply think a Bitcoin investor came across their old hard drive and recovered their fortune. Meanwhile, another X user suggested that the movement of 250 BTC is an indication of potential shifts in the market.
Nermeen Nabil Khear