 
 
A cryptocurrency investor turned a $4,400 stake into a multimillion-dollar profit after patiently holding their BTC holdings for over 12 years, highlighting the long-term investment potential of the digital asset.
Long-Dormant Whale Awakens With Mammoth Profits
Major blockchain sleuth Whale Alert pointed out in a post on X that an unknown Bitcoin wallet holding 479 Bitcoins moved the funds on Thursday for the first time since 2012.
The investor reportedly purchased the coins for about $5,748, meaning they have bagged a life-changing 933.850% return on their investment.
The last time this wallet was used was in 2012, two years after the pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, decided to leave the public forums and move on to other projects after BTC. At the time, the wallet sent 4 BTC (worth around $44 then), when its total balance was worth just $4,400.
According to blockchain data from Mempool, the wallet’s owner initiated five outbound transactions, totaling roughly 81.25 BTC (valued at $9 million), between 2:36 a.m. and 9:29 a.m. UTC.
 
The reason for the transfers, as well as the identity of the wallet’s owner, remains unknown as of publication time. Besides the two small test transactions, involving the movement of 0.24998803 and 0.00039728 BTC to two different anonymous wallets, the majority of the funds have not been shifted further so far, blockchain sleuth Arkham Intelligence revealed.
The leading cryptocurrency was recently trading hands for $110,105 per coin, according to CoinGecko data, representing a 1.6% drop over 24 hours. The coin has also slumped 2.1% over a seven-day period, but it smashed a new record peak of $124,128 in August.
Ancient Bitcoin Whales Make Big Splash
Legacy Bitcoin whales have been making big moves in recent months as Bitcoin has soared.
Back in July, Galaxy Digital sold over $80,000 BTC, worth over $9 billion at the time, for a Satoshi-era whale, marking the largest ever notional sale of the benchmark cryptocurrency.
More recently, a mysterious Bitcoin megawhale continued to accelerate a notable rotation from BTC to Ether this month. The wallet, which initially held over $5 billion worth of the OG crypto, has amassed nearly $4 billion in the second-largest cryptocurrency so far.