Sleeping Giant Stirred: Dormant Ethereum Wallet Wakes After Decade Holding Millions in ETH

A crypto time capsule just cracked open—and it’s raining digital gold.

The 10-Year HODL That Paid Off

An Ethereum wallet untouched since the blockchain’s infancy suddenly sprang to life this week. Its contents? A fortune in ETH that’s been gathering dust—and compounding value—while Wall Street hedge funds burned cash on ‘safe’ bonds.

From Obscurity to Lambo Dreams

The reactivated stash—worth millions at today’s prices—proves what crypto OGs have preached for years: sometimes the best trading strategy is not trading at all. Meanwhile, traditional finance bros are still waiting for their 2% annual yields to ‘moon’.

Wake-up call: in the race between patience and ‘smart money,’ the turtle just lapped the hare.

First Transaction From Dormant ETH Address Since 2015

On-chain tracker Whale Alerts was the first to report the reawakening of a pre-mined Ethereum address that had been inactive for nearly a decade. According to the large on-chain transaction tracker, the wallet, which held 2,000 ETH, initiated its last transaction 9.9 years ago. When the wallet last moved any funds in 2015, the entire stash was worth just $620. Today, that same amount is valued at over $5 million, making the owner’s profit roughly 820x based on current prices. At Ethereum’s all-time high price of $4,878 in 2021, the cryptocurrencies reached an unrealized gain of 1573x.

A dormant pre-mine address containing 2,000 #ETH (5,063,918 USD) has just been activated after 9.9 years (worth 620 USD in 2015)!https://t.co/G0i8Rif0XX

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) June 14, 2025

The alert by Whale Alerts, which noted the first transaction after 9.9 years, involved the transfer of 0.0001 ETH from the whale address “0xcF26” to address “0x2C12,” which is a newly created ETH address. However, Etherscan’s on-chain transaction data reveals that the whale address sent 500 ETH into the newly created address shortly afterward. 

Following the string of transaction data from Etherscan shows that these 500 ETH eventually made their way into  address “0x28C6,” which is known to be owned and controlled by crypto exchange Binance. This means that the 500 ETH may have already been sold through the exchange or are currently being prepared for liquidation.

Brace For Impact: Will The Remaining 1,500 ETH Be Sold?

As of now, the original whale address still holds approximately 1,500 ETH, currently valued at $3.796 million. However, it opens up the question of whether the rest of the funds will also be sold. Although we cannot be sure of a planned full liquidation, the pattern of the 500 ETH transfer and the involvement of an exchange address indicate that the possibility cannot be dismissed.

Right now, Ethereum is in a fragile price action around the $2,500 price level. If more ETH is offloaded by the whale, the added selling pressure could make it even harder for Ethereum to break out of its current consolidation phase, especially if there isn’t enough buying pressure to absorb the ETH sold off. 

At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $2,525. The past 24 hours were spent by Ethereum trading between $2,549 and $2,495.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView