A $48 Ethereum holding has turned into a fortune for its owner, who has held it for a decade. In recent hours, blockchain data tracer Whale Alert reported the activation of a dormant premine address after 10.1 years.
The owner of the wallet invested $48 in the Ethereum ICO way back in 2015 and received 158 ETH, which is now worth $693,197, marking a 14,402 times increase or 1,444,060% gain.
💤 A dormant pre-mine address containing 158 #ETH (693,197 USD) has just been activated after 10.1 years (worth 48 USD in 2015)!https://t.co/t5u4hNaVpP
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) August 29, 2025
According to other on-chain sources, the Ethereum ICO participant transferred 0.001 ETH out to a new wallet for testing purposes after more than a decade of dormancy.
At its ICO, Ethereum’s price was about $0.31, as investors were able to acquire 2,000 ETH for BTC. The ETH price slightly increased during the ICO event, later going for 1,337 ETH to 1 BTC.
Fast forward to the present, and Ethereum has experienced meteoric growth, recently hitting an all-time high of $4,955 (on Aug. 23).
Ethereum sees increased demand
At press time, ETH was trading at $4,346, as the second-largest cryptocurrency benefits from renewed demand.
Ethereum has increased 70% on a yearly basis as accumulation from ETH Focused treasury firms has boosted its momentum so far this year.
As validation for the recent Ethereum accumulation by firms, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck referred to Ethereum as “Wall street token,” prompted by the need for blockchain rails by banks and financial firms adopting stablecoins.
According to Maartunn, a community analyst at CryptoQuant, in the last 30 days, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs saw a negative netflow of $920 million, while Ethereum ETFs recorded a positive netflow of $4.08 billion, hinting at investor rotation in Ethereum’s favor.
