Dormant BTC wallet wakes up after 14 years with 11,000x paper profit

A Satoshi-era Bitcoin whale has reawakened after nearly 14 years of dormancy, making a test transaction from its 2,100 Bitcoin stash worth nearly $148 million at current market prices.

Data from mempool.space shows around $47 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) was transferred from wallet address “1NB3Z…QB6ZX” to a fresh address on Friday at 10:27am UTC.

The Bitcoin whale had been dormant since July 2012, when they scooped up the 2,100 Bitcoin at roughly $6.5 a coin for about $13,685, Whale Alert noted, meaning the trader is up more than 1,000,000% since 2012.

Source: Whale Alert

The test transaction doesn’t necessarily mean the whale is looking to offload its holdings. Many whales make small transfers to confirm that they still maintain full control over their funds.

However, crypto traders often watch whale transaction patterns to gauge Bitcoin’s short-term price movements, given the outsized influence that they have on market liquidity and sentiment.

Bitcoin whales contributed to selling pressure in the past

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said in November that Satoshi-era wallets were partially to blame for Bitcoin failing to recover from the Oct. 10 market flash crash, when the cryptocurrency fell from over $120,000 to around $102,000 after nearly $19 billion worth of leveraged positions were wiped out.

“Crypto-native retail” and early investors have “compressed upside” through large-scale selling, preventing Bitcoin from mounting a comeback, Hougan said at the time.

Related: Coinbase, Apex Group tokenize Bitcoin Yield Fund on Base

One of the most notable Satoshi-era transfers in 2025 took place in July, when 80,000 Bitcoin worth $4.6 billion at the time was sent to Galaxy Digital.

Sending funds of that size to market makers and liquidity providers like Galaxy Digital is typical when whales want to offload their funds.

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