14-Year-Dormant Bitcoin Wallet Springs to Life, Migrating 100 BTC

On Sunday, a wallet that had lain inactive for nearly 14 years sprang to life, executing a transaction of 100 BTC—a haul from 2011 now valued at $8.5 million.

A nearly 14-year-old wallet on Sunday executed a transaction of 100 bitcoin (BTC), now valued at $8.5 million, from 2011.

At a height of 889,103, an old Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH) wallet came out of dormancy to move 100 BTC into four Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) addresses. The legacy wallet, “12znK,” was first made on Aug. 2, 2011, around 13 years and seven months ago.

The new wallets now each hold 24.99 BTC after the transfer. The linked 100 bitcoin cash (BCH)—valued at $32,460—remains inactive.

While it was first active on Aug. 2, 2011, the 12znK wallet initially received just 1 BTC during its creation.

Nearly two weeks later, on Aug. 14, 2011, an additional 99 BTC arrived at the address. At the time of the first deposit, bitcoin’s value was around $13.09, but it had dropped to roughly $10.13 by the second transaction.

Together, the wallet’s holdings at the time came to $1,015.96, which had dwindled to $425 by December 31, 2011, as prices fluctuated. Over the intervening years, the accrued BTC has seen an astronomical 836,493% return on investment.

As assessed by Blockchair’s privacy analysis tool, the recent transfer was ranked 50/100 for privacy, being penalized for its swept transaction makeup and identical input addresses.

While dormant bitcoin wallets from 2009 remain the Holy Grails for onchain sleuths tracking vintage transactions, those from 2010, 2011, and even 2012 have become increasingly rare in the present day.