in BTC $8M Worth of BTC Moved After 8 Years in Dormant Ethereum Wallet Reactivation

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An Ether (ETH) wallet that was dormant since the Ethereum’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in 2015, suddenly awoke; transferring 8,000 ETH in two minutes. The wallet had received the 8,000 ETH after participating in the ICO and remained inactive until May 27 when its owner began with a single ETH transfer to a new wallet. After a minute, the remaining 7,999 ETH were moved to the new address. At the time of writing, the ETH stash is worth approximately $14.7 million.

This transaction was first noticed by blockchain analytics service Lookonchain, which informed its 219,000 Twitter followers. There was some speculation in the comments section of the post around the reason for the transfer. One suggestion was that the owner had just been released from prison, while another made a humorous remark that the funds were transferred from an old Ledger.

At the time, the 8,000 ETH was purchased at a price of just $0.31 per token, which places the initial investment amount at around $2,500. This marks a staggering 590,000% gain for the owner at today’s prices of $1,917.

This is not the only ICO-era Ether wallet to re-awaken in recent months. On April 24, another wallet which received 2,365 ETH ($4.5 million) made its first transaction in nearly 8 years. On March 5, another ETH wallet transferred 10,226 ETH ($19.6 million) out to new wallet address after remaining dormant for five years.

The new wallet address is one with little in the way of any significant transaction history. The only other ETH transaction recorded in the new wallet is a 207 ETH ($380,000) incoming transaction that was made just a few minutes prior to the most recent transfer. Notably, the additional 207 ETH were sent from another wallet that remained completely inactive since June 12, 2017. Interestingly, the new wallet also contains $46 worth of a memecoin called Gensler (GENSLR), and just $0.24 worth of a dragon-inspired token called Dejitaru Tsuka (TSUKA), according to data from Web3 wallet tracker DeBank.

The Ethereum ICO occurred in two primary stages. The first stage was a pre-sale which, between July 22 and Sept. 2, 2014, raised $18 million. The going exchange rate was 1 BTC for 2,000 ETH. The second stage was the official launch of the Ethereum blockchain which took place on July 30, 2015. This meant that some investors waited more than a year to be able to redeem and use their ETH.

Dormant wallets with large amounts of crypto can awaken for various reasons. Sometimes they wake up because they’ve been hacked. Other times, it’s because the owner may have forgotten about it and upon its re-discovery, have decided to sell.

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