Following the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, the price of bitcoin has maintained above the $16K zone for the past seven days. Since then, several “sleeping bitcoins” that had been dormant for five to nine years have started moving during the previous four days. For the first time in years, Bitcoins that were valued much less back then are being moved.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has been stable over the past seven days, fluctuating between $16,150 and $16,995 per unit and briefly crossing the $17K region. Hundreds of old bitcoins have been moving over the past four days, despite the fact that BTC prices are significantly lower than they were at the beginning of November.
Two owners, for instance, spent 348 bitcoin on November 29, 2022, and the stockpile had a previous value of $348,000. The transferred coins were spent from addresses that were created over six years ago, but we cannot really tell if they were sold or not. Additionally, according to heuristics, 299 of the 348 bitcoin that have been sitting idle since March 2017 likely belonged to the same owner.
Using the current BTC conversion rates, the 348 BTC is equivalent to around 5.8 million nominal U.S. dollars. “17HxA,” an address created on March 29, 2017, was managed by a single owner, and it spent 48.88 BTC at block height 765,168. Coincidentally, five additional transactions from end-of-March 2017 addresses each spent 59.99 BTC at block heights 765,169, 765,184, 765,185, 765,187, and 765,190.
Blockchain parsers from btcparser.com discovered two Bitcoin transactions on the same day: a 173.61 BTC spend from an inactive address created on June 14, 2017, and a 100 BTC spend from an address created on April 12, 2014. The 100 bitcoin were worth less than $500 each when they were placed in an address and left there for nearly nine years.
Following these older transactions, a transaction from an address that had not been seen for almost ten years on April 26, 2013, outperformed all other transactions on November 29, 2022. On December 2, 2022, the wallet “1EaAv” spent 600 alleged “sleeping bitcoins,” according to the transaction. Using the current BTC exchange rates, the 600 BTC, which were spent at block height 765,644, are now worth approximately $10.14 million. On April 26, 2013, the 600 BTC was worth about $84,000.
According to data, the total value of all bitcoins spent since November 29—which remained dormant for five to nine years—was less than $800K when the initial addresses were made.
