Twelve bitcoin wallets that had not moved since March 2010 shifted 600 BTC on Saturday. That is roughly $48 million. Whale Alert called it the largest synchronized awakening of mining-era coins in years.
The transfers came within days of at least four other decade-old wallets moving a combined 202.84 BTC, about $15.7 million, between Aug. 29 and Sept. 4. Galaxy Research tracked that activity on-chain. One tranche went to Coinbase. The bursts have revived a familiar question: are early holders cashing out through a volatile stretch of the cycle?
All 12 mining-era rewards traced by Whale Alert came from Bitcoin blocks mined in March 2010. Each block paid a 50 BTC subsidy at the time. That subsidy has since been halved four times, most recently to 3.125 BTC in April 2024. Blockchain records show one address received its 50 BTC reward on March 5, 2010, and moved the coins to a new address on Sept. 5, 2026.
“None of the blocks can be connected to Satoshi based on our research,” a Whale Alert spokesperson told Cointelegraph. The coins date to a period when Satoshi Nakamoto was still active on Bitcoin. Nakamoto’s last known communication was in April 2011.
Lookonchain first flagged seven miner wallets moving 350 BTC after 16.5 years of silence. Whale Alert later expanded the count to 12 rewards and said one moved several blocks before the rest. The pattern is consistent with a test transaction before the remaining transfers.
The Galaxy batch tells a starker story about vintage gains. The largest wallet held 146.06 BTC, about $11.3 million, untouched since November 2013. That represents a gain of roughly 12,902% on a cost basis near $595. A 40 BTC wallet dormant since November 2011 came next, worth around $3.09 million. It turned roughly $120 in BTC into more than $3 million over close to 15 years. Galaxy traced that return through mempool data. Two smaller wallets rounded out the group. One held 10 BTC sitting idle since June 2011, worth about $777,000. The other held 6.78 BTC last active in February 2011, worth roughly $551,000.
Galaxy tagged that 6.78 BTC transfer with a Coinbase recipient address. Coins sent to an exchange typically signal intent to sell rather than re-custody. The remaining transfers in the batch carry no clear destination.
Several reawakened wallets carried “Noah Doe” sender tags. That is a reference to a New York lawsuit seeking to have thousands of dormant addresses declared abandoned property. Named wallets tied to that case have stirred regularly since a judge paused the proceedings in June, Decrypt reported. Whether that connects to the 600 BTC mining-era batch is not established. Cointelegraph does not mention the case.
The awakenings extend a pattern that has run all summer. An earlier wave saw six wallets move roughly $40 million in a 10-day stretch in August, per Decrypt. Why vintage holders are moving now remains unclear. Neither source specifies where the 600 BTC mining-era coins were sent. The destinations of most Galaxy-tracked transfers are ambiguous.
What the chain does show is age and size. Coins mined in March 2010 sat through four halvings, three bull cycles, and the collapse of Mt. Gox before moving last week. Traders, as ever, disagree on what that signals.
