Bitcoin miner from 2009 sends BTC to Kraken

Another wallet that holds coins mined in the first two months after Bitcoin’s launch has reactivated after lying dormant for more than a decade.

On September 24, blockchain intelligence firm Arkham flagged a Bitcoin (BTC) whale wallet that was mining Bitcoin in February and March 2009. This means that the miner was active in the early days of Bitcoin’s launch, when the cryptocurrency space was still in its infancy and BTC was worth almost $0.

After the initial transactions in the first few years, the Satoshi-era wallet lay dormant.

However, on-chain data shows that the whale’s wallet suddenly woke up. The wallet’s last transaction was a move of five bitcoins to crypto exchange Kraken.

From $474,000 to over $80 million

According to Arkham, there are still 1,215 BTC worth more than $77 million in this suddenly active wallet.

But when the whale last moved coins in 2014, the total value of its holdings was around $474,000. Over the last 10 years of holding, the BTC price has increased significantly, bringing its value to $80 million.

After moving several times between 2011 and 2014, Bitcoin remained dormant for almost 10 YEARS, during which time its value increased from $474k to over $80m.

This whale woke up about 3 weeks ago and has so far transferred 10 Bitcoins to Kraken in 3 separate transactions. pic.twitter.com/1uc4CUU616

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) September 24, 2024

By the way, let’s note that the whale in question has been active for about three weeks and 10 BTC has been transferred to Kraken in three separate transactions so far.

Like other wallets created in those early years, this wallet was mined while Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto was still mining coins and was present in the ecosystem. Like other transactions involving wallet addresses from that era, this transfer caught the attention of the BTC community.

Last week, another wallet from the Satoshi era woke up and transferred around $16 million worth of BTC. This particular wallet had been dormant for over 15 years.

In August 2024, a dormant Bitcoin wallet from 2014 moved more than $10.2 million worth of BTC. Previously, in June, a Bitcoin wallet that had been inactive since 2010 moved $3 million worth of BTC to crypto exchange Binance.