During the last seven days, bitcoin’s price has remained above the $16K region following the aftermath of FTX’s collapse. Since then, a number of ‘sleeping bitcoins’ that sat idle for five to nine years have been moving during the last four days. Bitcoins that were worth far less back then are being transferred for the first time in years.
$20M worth of old bitcoins move after lying dormant for years
Bitcoin (BTC) price has been stable during the past seven days, ranging between $16,150 to $16,995 per unit, and a brief surge in the $17K region. Hundreds of old bitcoins have been on the move over the past four days, while the BTC price is far lower than it was in early November.
For instance, two owners spent 348 bitcoin on Nov. 29, 2022, and the stash was once worth $348,000. We can’t really tell whether or not the transferred coins were sold, but they were spent from addresses created almost six years ago. Heuristics also indicate that out of the 348 bitcoin that sat dormant since March 2017, 299 of that BTC likely belonged to the same owner.
Using current BTC exchange rates, 348 BTC is worth approximately US$5.8 million in nominal terms. An owner controlling “17HxA”, an address created on March 29, 2017, spent 48.88 BTC at block height 765,168. Incidentally, five more transactions, from addresses created in late March 2017, each spent 59.99 BTC at block heights 765,169, 765,184, 765,185, 765,187, and 765,190.
On the same day, blockchain parsers from btcparser.com caught a 173.61 BTC spend from an idle address created on June 14, 2017, and another 100 BTC spend from an address created on April 12, 2014. The 100 bitcoin sat in an address idle for close to nine years, and at the time, each BTC was worth less than $500 per unit.
After these old spends, a transaction from an address seen almost ten years ago, on April 26, 2013, beats all spends made on November 29, 2022. The transaction took place on December 2, 2022, and wallet “1EaAv” spent 600 so-called ‘sleeping bitcoins’. 600 BTC was worth about $84,000 on April 26, 2013, and the coins that were spent today at block height 765,644 are worth about $10.14 million using current BTC exchange rates.
Data shows that out of all the bitcoins spent since Nov. 29, which slept for roughly five to nine years, all of them combined were worth less than $800K in value at the time the original addresses were created. Using exchange rates today, the 1,221.45 BTC that stemmed from ‘sleeping bitcoin’ addresses equates to around $20 million. Old holders are moving bitcoins that sat dormant for five to nine years, while current bitcoin prices are at the lowest values in two years.
