Twenty-eight bitcoin wallets that sat untouched for years suddenly moved 1,314.41 BTC worth $94.03 million in 24 hours. Most of the coins, 1,214.42 BTC ($86 million), came from wallets first seen in 2014, whose holders are now sitting on gains of at least 16,645%.
Bitcoin climbed to a weekly high of $72,400, and vintage coins are crawling out of cold storage at a relentless pace. Blockchain parser btcparser.com tracked 28 dormant wallets moving 1,314.41 BTC worth $94.03 million between Aug. 19 and 20. The 2014 cohort alone accounted for 92.4% of the bitcoin moved.
A Decade of Dormant Coins Wakes Up
Btcparser.com data shows the 28 wallets shifted their coins to fresh addresses after years of silence, with 21 of the 28 spends moving in neat 50 BTC chunks from wallets created in November or December 2014. The owner moved the coins out of legacy P2PKH wallets and consolidated them into newer P2WPKH addresses, and several transfers landed in the same block, including block height 963203, suggesting the movements were coordinated rather than random.
The destination addresses carry no flags from explorers such as Arkham Intelligence and show no obvious signs of heading toward an exchange. Blockchair's privacy tool, however, rated several of the consolidated 50 BTC transfers "low," scoring them just 22 out of 100 across roughly four privacy issues, including repeated appearances of the same address among the inputs.
More Old Wallets Join the Move
On Thursday, another 2014 wallet, first seen Dec. 26 of that year, shifted 150 BTC worth $10.73 million at current exchange rates, also jumping from a legacy P2PKH address into a fresh, unflagged P2WPKH wallet. Blockchain parsers also spotted three 2016 wallets moving 79.99 BTC and two addresses created in 2017 shifting another 20 BTC during the same window.
The wave follows August's Coldcard incident, where nearly 2,000 BTC were stolen from hardware wallets running faulty firmware. The latest movements are not associated with those stolen funds, but likely reflect old-school holders quietly moving coins to safer cold storage destinations.
A 16,645% Payday for Diamond Hands
The 2014 cohort had the most to gain. Bitcoin traded between roughly $310 and $427 throughout November and December 2014, before the market's bear run dragged prices down to roughly $152 to $170 by mid-January 2015. Even using the higher end of that 2014 range, these wallets were sitting on a gain of at least 16,645% by Thursday.
Source: Bitcoin News
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