From $6 to $6.9 million: Two dormant Bitcoin addresses wake up to move 100 BTC after more than 16 years

Two Bitcoin addresses that had sat dormant for more than 16 years moved 100 BTC on Friday morning, worth approximately $6.89 million, according to onchain data.

The first address sent nearly 50 BTC to one address and 0.01 BTC to another at 4:08 a.m. UTC. Just over two minutes later, the second address sent nearly 49 BTC to one address and 1 BTC to another. Both sets of coins came from block rewards mined in September 2010, data from blockchain explorer Mempool shows. Onchain monitoring platform Whale Alert first reported the moves, estimating that each 50 BTC reward was worth about $3 when received in 2010.

By 4:48 a.m. UTC, about 20 BTC from the first transfer and 39 BTC from the second had been consolidated at a new address starting "bc1qj5." Some 30 BTC sits at another new address starting "bc1qqs," 10 BTC at "bc1qds," and 1 BTC at "bc1qce" at the time of writing.

The reason for the transfers, the identity of the wallets' owners, and whether the two original outputs had the same owner remain unknown.

With bitcoin Bitcoin (BTC) currently trading for around $69,000, according to The Block's prices page, the value of the bitcoin the addresses transferred has risen more than 1.15 million times since 2010.

Early Bitcoin mining rewards

Mempool labels both 50 BTC inputs as pay-to-public-key, or P2PK. The four addresses that received the coins on Friday all start with bc1q, a prefix used by newer native SegWit (P2WPKH) addresses. Older Bitcoin addresses include pay-to-public-key-hash (P2PKH) addresses starting with 1 and pay-to-script-hash (P2SH) addresses starting with 3. The latest Taproot (P2TR) address format starts with bc1p.

Other early bitcoin holdings have moved to newer address formats after years of dormancy, and several addresses named in a New York lawsuit over allegedly abandoned bitcoin have moved funds recently after the plaintiffs sent onchain notices.

Five 50 BTC block rewards mined in April 2010 went untouched for about 15 years before they moved to two SegWit addresses in July 2025. The coins were worth about $29.6 million at the time. A March 2024 transaction combined 40 mining rewards from 2010, totaling 2,000 BTC worth nearly $140 million.