From $6 to $6.9 million: two Bitcoin wallets wake up after 16 years

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https://cryptoast.fr/bitcoin-deux-adresses-2010-reveillent-100-btc-16-ans/

Two Bitcoin addresses inactive since September 2010 moved 100 BTC in total this Friday, two minutes apart. These bitcoins, received as mining rewards, were worth around $6 in total at the time. Their owner, who remains unknown, could recover around $6.9 million today if he sold them.

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At 5:08 a.m. PST, the first address sent just under 50 BTC to a new wallet and 0.01 BTC to another. A little over two minutes later, the second transferred almost 49 BTC to one side and 1 BTC to the other.

The funds were then redistributed. Around 5:48 a.m., approximately 20 BTC from the first transfer and 39 BTC from the second were grouped together on the same address. Three other new addresses hold the remaining approximately 41 BTC.

This grouping suggests a single owner, without making it possible to identify his identity or determine the reason for the movements. Please also note that a transfer does not necessarily mean a sale.

In 2010, Bitcoin was barely a year old and Satoshi Nakamoto was still participating in its development. Each validated block brought 50 BTC to the miner, until the first halving, in November 2012. The value of the bitcoins moved has since multiplied by more than a million.

Both batches used P2PK, an old format that makes the public key visible on the blockchain. They were transferred to SegWit addresses, more recent and recognizable by the prefix “bc1q”, which hide this key until the funds are spent.

This difference matters in the face of quantum risk: a sufficiently powerful computer could, in theory, use a public key to find the private key allowing bitcoins to be spent. However, there is no evidence to confirm that this threat motivated the transfers.

These movements are part of a series of long-standing bitcoin transfers. As of July 2025, five 50 BTC mining rewards dating back to April 2010 had been moved to SegWit addresses. The 250 BTC then represented approximately $29.6 million.

On the same subject – $107 billion in Bitcoin (BTC): Arkham identifies 22,000 addresses belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto

On October 20, 500 BTC also left an address linked, according to Arkham Intelligence, to Clifton Collins, an Irishman convicted of drug trafficking. These funds belonged to a reserve whose private keys had long been considered lost. Arkham identified their destination as a Coinbase Prime deposit address, without this establishing a sale.

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