Skeleton Keys Turn: $74M in Decade-Old Sleeping Bitcoin Wallets Spring to Life
Since Easter’s price climb thrust bitcoin to fresh highs, a wave of once-silent coins has begun to stir. In just the past few days, 790.97 BTC—now valued at about $74.10 million—have left hibernation after years of inertia.
Slumbering Bitcoin Cohort Awakens After Easter Rally
As BTC breezed past $93,000, a wallet born on Sept. 14, 2012—nearly 13 years old—finally moved its 242 BTC for the first time at block height 893,589. The trove, now assessed at $22.6 million, journeyed from a classic P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) address to a modern Bech32 P2WPKH (Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash) destination.
Back when the owner acquired the hoard, it was valued at just $253.40, translating into an eye-watering 8,923,480% appreciation since then. Yesterday, eight wallets dating back to February and March 2013 awakened, each dispatching 25 BTC, for an aggregate 200 BTC now worth $18.7 million—their first activity in more than a dozen years.
Data gathered by btcparser.com shows the coins departed from eight individual and legacy P2PKH addresses. Similarly to the 2012 transfer, the full allocation converged in a fresh Bech32 P2WPKH wallet. Momentum for reanimated bitcoin became a lot more prominent on April 21, when four addresses created in June 2017 sent 126.96 BTC across four transactions.
