An ancient Bitcoin wallet has suddenly sprung back to life after more than 15 years of inactivity.
The wallet had roughly $1.7 million worth of BTC that had remained untouched since May 2011.
According to Galaxy Research, 20.43 BTC associated with the address moved in two separate transactions on Sept. 29.
Tiny Bitcoin holdings turn into $1.7 million
Galaxy Research estimated an average historical basis of roughly $4 for the 10.33 BTC batch.
The analytics firm calculated a gain of approximately $872,000, or an eye-popping 2,192,671%.
The other 10.10 BTC had an estimated basis of only around $3 per coin.
Combined, Galaxy put the gain associated with the two groups of ancient outputs at approximately $1.724 million.
Galaxy Research had no attribution for either the sender or the recipient.
Month of ancient Bitcoin awakenings
There has been a rather notable series of transfers involving coins that had remained untouched for anywhere from four years to more than 16 years.
One of the month’s most notable events occurred on Sept. 5, when 12 wallets containing 50 BTC apiece moved a combined 600 BTC after more than 16 years of inactivity.
The coins originated from mining rewards generated in March 2010.
The 600 BTC was worth roughly $48 million at the time. The old outputs were swept into newer, previously unidentified Bitcoin addresses. Blockchain investigators found no evidence establishing that the coins belonged to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto despite their extremely early origin.
During the first five days of the month alone, approximately 626.74 BTC from long-dormant wallets moved for the first time in years. That included eight wallets dating to 2013 that moved 25 BTC each within roughly 25 seconds.
Galaxy Research tracked four wallets that had been inactive for at least a decade moving a combined 1,971.03 BTC between Sept. 6 and Sept. 22.
An even older wallet containing 10.25 BTC also woke up after being dormant since March 2011.
On Sept. 19, yet another 2011 wallet moved 100 BTC worth approximately $8.09 million.
Just three days later, on Sept. 22, a wallet that had been inactive since July 2012 moved 600 BTC worth approximately $51.9 million.
