A Bitcoin wallet that has been dormant since 2018 was suddenly activated, transferring 8,000 BTC after nearly 6 years of inactivity...
According to data from Lookchain, a Bitcoin 'whale' unexpectedly transferred 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC) worth 536.5 million USD from a Coinbase cold storage wallet after 5 and a half years of inactivity to the Binance exchange.
According to blockchain analysis company Arkham Intelligence, the bitcoin address '1ABww1...mCSKq' received the entire amount of 8,000 BTC at block 847,490.
Just 11 minutes later, the above wallet transferred all the Bitcoins to the Binance deposit address '15u4H...rMsLa'. Although a massive amount of Bitcoin was transferred, there were no test transactions conducted in either of these transfers.
This whale's Coinbase cold wallet initially received a total of 8,000 Bitcoins through dozens of transactions in 2018, mainly in batches of 200 BTC.
Typically, long-dormant addresses with large holdings suddenly becoming active are often for the purpose of selling, especially if they transfer to a deposit address on an exchange.
Although the intentions of the owner of this Bitcoin wallet are unclear, if they sell all the aforementioned Bitcoins, they would make a profit of nearly 1,700% compared to the initial purchase price of 3,750 USD on December 5, 2018.
This is not the first time the Bitcoin cold wallet has awakened. On May 12, two 10-year-old Bitcoin wallets sent a total of 1,000 Bitcoins. A week prior, a Bitcoin wallet from the time of Satoshi Nakamoto transferred 687 Bitcoin USD to two different addresses.
However, according to reports from Chainalysis and Fortune, there are still up to 1.75 million dormant Bitcoin addresses, containing over 1.798 million BTC (worth about 121 billion USD) that have not been active for over a decade.
The actions of dormant wallets suddenly becoming active again may indicate a 'profit-taking' move by the owner, predicting that the market is about to undergo a correction, especially when these wallets transfer Bitcoin to a cryptocurrency exchange's deposit address.