A mysterious Ethereum wallet that had been inactive for nearly nine years has suddenly come back to life. Crypto data tracker Whale Alert reported in recent hours that a dormant premine address containing 492 ETH, currently worth $1,139,052, has just been activated after 8.5 years.
Its owner most likely purchased the tokens during Ethereum’s ICO, when each ETH was worth approximately 31 cents.
💤 A dormant pre-mine address containing 492 #ETH (1,139,052 USD) has just been activated after 8.5 years!https://t.co/QI9hYG7GbD
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) February 2, 2024
However, the wallet remained dormant for the next eight and a half years, never sending or receiving any transactions. This prompts interest and conjecture as it brings up the question of who held the wallet and why it was never used.
Dormant wallets containing significant amounts of cryptocurrency can awaken for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, dormant wallets resurface after being hacked. Other times, it is just because the owner forgot about it and, upon reawakening, felt that the present moment could be a good time to sell.
Ethereum price action
According to CoinMarketCap data, ETH has increased by 2.03% in the last 24 hours to $2,314.
In the weeks preceding the spot Bitcoin ETF approval, Ether pricing reached fresh highs above $2,700 but then fell along with the rest of the market. In a stunning reversal, the Ethereum price intends to kickstart a rebound that might be powered by increasing network activity.
As previously reported, Ethereum is experiencing a large increase in network activity. According to data from on-chain analytics firm Santiment, Ethereum is seeing 101,000 new ETH addresses created per day, with 484,000 unique addresses interacting with the blockchain, and network activity is roughly 30% higher than it was 90 days ago.
This means that more people are transacting on the network, utilizing smart contracts and developing decentralized apps (dApps).
