Dormant Ethereum Wallet Containing $14.8 Million Activates After Eight Years
Optimisus – By Sophia Hernandez
A dormant Ethereum wallet containing $14.8 million in ether has been activated after eight years. The wallet first made a test transaction with 1 ether ($1,845) before sending the remaining 7,999 ether to another address.
The wallet was created in 2015 and was used to participate in the Ethereum ICO or initial coin offering. At the time, ether was trading for around $0.31 per token, or just shy of $2,500 in total. That means the owner is sitting on a 591,900% return on investment at current prices.
The funds have been moved to another wallet with limited transaction history. The only other movement in that wallet is a 207 ether ($380,000) inbound transaction that was made only a few minutes earlier. These funds were sent from a different wallet that hadn’t been active since 2017.
It’s unclear why this Ethereum ICO participant is consolidating some — or all — of their funds into one wallet. They don’t appear to have been sent to an exchange and haven’t been sold on-chain.
These types of movements have happened a few times in the past. In December, two addresses moved $27 million of ether, of which some funds were from the Ethereum ICO. In April, another ICO participant moved $4.4 million of funds.
The activation of this dormant Ethereum wallet is a sign that there is still significant interest in the cryptocurrency. It also shows that some investors are still holding onto their tokens, even after years of price volatility.
