12-Year Dormant Bitcoin Address Suddenly Springs To Life As BTC Nosedives Under $58K

A mystery Bitcoin whale holding roughly $6.9 million worth of BTC just woke up after a 12-year slumber, on-chain data shows.

As tracked by Whale Alert, the unidentified investor first purchased 119 BTC for just $599 in 2012 — after which the wallet lay dormant until earlier today.

According to Mempool data, the unknown entity first transferred 76 BTC (valued at around $4.3 million) at 7:11 am UTC. The address shortly followed with a transfer of the remaining 43 BTC (worth $2.6 million) at 8:55 a.m. UTC.

The wallet was last active on February 28, 2012, when it sent 2.98 BTC (worth approximately $15 at the time). As of publication time, the wallet’s owner’s identity and reason for the transfer remain unknown. However, on-chain data suggests the individual is remerging the 119 BTC at a new wallet address.

Early this month, another Bitcoin whale reawakened after years of dormancy. On July 2, Whale Alert brought attention to the first activation of the Bitcoin address containing $2.1 million BTC in 13 years.

Bitcoin Plunges Toward $57K

Other large cohorts have been dumping in recent weeks. Miners offloaded a massive amount of BTC in June owing to post-halving revenue hurdles. However, both the German and United States governments have been dumping hundreds of millions of dollars in BTC confiscated from criminals over the years.

Today, Bitcoin plummeted to as low as $57,071, falling to prices not seen since early May. The world’s largest and oldest crypto has since slightly clawed back some losses above $57,585 but is still down 4.3% over the past 24 hours.

The sell-off came as wallets belonging to the now-defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox stirred for the first time in a month and the German Federal Criminal Police Office moved BTC worth about $75 million to exchanges, including Bitstamp, Coinbase, and Kraken today.

Some traders anticipate panic-selling after Bitcoin’s price tumbled below the crucial 200-day simple moving average (SMA), a key technical indicator often used to evaluate long-term trends. However, CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju believes this cycle is quite different because spot ETFs now account for over a quarter of total spot trading volumes. “New money this time is more mature than ever, and I believe there’s still much more mature money to come,” he postulated in a post on X.