Ancient wallet's reactivation highlights growing trend of early Bitcoin holders moving coins amid security fears and profit-taking*
A Bitcoin wallet holding 4,000 BTC valued at approximately $442 million has sprung back to life after 14 years of complete inactivity, marking one of the most significant dormant wallet reactivations in cryptocurrency history. The wallet, identified as 18eY9o, transferred 150 BTC - roughly $16.6 million - on October 24, 2025, according to blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain.
The coins were originally mined in 2009 during Bitcoin's earliest days and consolidated into the wallet in 2011, placing them firmly in the "Satoshi era"—the period when Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto was still actively involved in the project's development. With Bitcoin trading around $111,260 at the time of the movement, the reactivation has sparked intense speculation about the motivations behind the transfer.
A Broader Pattern of Early Holder Exits
This wallet reactivation is far from an isolated incident. It represents a crescendo in a narrative that has dominated 2025: early Bitcoin holders, often called "OGs," are increasingly moving or liquidating their long-dormant holdings as the cryptocurrency consolidates above the psychologically significant $100,000 threshold.
On-chain analyst James Check, known as _Checkmate, has documented this phenomenon extensively. His data shows that long-term holders have sold over 240,000 BTC in the past 30 days alone - the largest wave of profit-taking since January 2025. "The sheer volume of sell-side pressure from existing Bitcoin holders is still not widely appreciated, but it has been THE source of resistance," Check noted in a recent analysis. "Not manipulation, not paper Bitcoin, not suppression. Just good old fashioned sellers."
The statistics paint a striking picture. According to Glassnode data, over 1.1 million BTC has remained untouched since 2011. As these ancient wallets awaken, they're creating sustained selling pressure that has kept Bitcoin range-bound between $108,000 and $111,000 throughout much of October.
Perhaps the most dramatic example came in July 2025, when an 80,000 BTC whale sold its entire stash through Galaxy Digital in a transaction valued at over $9 billion. The coins, inactive since April 2011 and later linked to the collapsed MyBitcoin exchange, represented one of the largest single Bitcoin sales in history.
Quantum Computing: The Invisible Threat Driving Movement
While profit-taking certainly plays a role, security concerns are emerging as an equally compelling motivation for early holders to move their Bitcoin. Specifically, the looming threat of quantum computing attacks on older address formats has become impossible to ignore.
Nicholas Gregory, Board Director at Fragrant Prosperity and a Bitcoin protocol expert since 2012, explained the vulnerability to CoinDesk. "Coins from this era (2011) may be vulnerable to potential quantum attacks if their public keys have been exposed (as is the case with early P2PK addresses or reused P2PKH addresses)," Gregory stated. "This could be a preemptive move to transfer coins to new, unexposed addresses that would be better sheltered from such quantum hacks."
The technical details are sobering. Early Bitcoin transactions used a Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) format that directly exposed public keys on the blockchain. Unlike modern address formats that hide public keys behind cryptographic hashes, P2PK addresses provide a potential attack vector for sufficiently powerful quantum computers using Shor's algorithm to derive private keys.
Research from consulting firm Deloitte estimates that approximately 25% of all Bitcoin - roughly 4 million to 4.5 million BTC - resides in addresses that could theoretically be compromised by quantum attacks. This includes about 2 million BTC in original P2PK addresses, most of them early mined coins that have never moved, plus another 2.5 million BTC in reused P2PKH addresses where public keys have been exposed through previous transactions.
While quantum computers capable of breaking Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography remain years or even decades away - requiring an estimated 1 million logical qubits compared to the few thousand available today - the threat is real enough that even major institutions are taking notice. BlackRock added a quantum computing warning to its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) filing in May 2025, stating that quantum computing poses "a significant risk to Bitcoin's long-term security."
Final thoughts
Despite the dramatic nature of these wallet reactivations, Bitcoin's market has demonstrated remarkable resilience. The 150 BTC movement from the recently awakened wallet represents a negligible fraction of Bitcoin's daily trading volume exceeding $20 billion, making the immediate market impact largely psychological rather than material.
However, the sustained selling pressure from long-term holders is creating tangible resistance. Realized profits have surged to approximately $1.7 billion per day—one of the highest levels seen in the current cycle. The average age of spent coins has risen from 26 days at the start of 2023 to around 100 days in October 2025, confirming that progressively older holdings are being activated and sold.
The confluence of profit-taking and security-driven migrations represents what analysts call a "changing of the guard" - a transfer of Bitcoin from early cypherpunk pioneers to institutional investors and traditional finance participants. While this creates short-term price resistance, many view it as a healthy maturation process that could ultimately strengthen Bitcoin's foundation.
For now, the cryptocurrency community watches closely as each ancient wallet awakening adds another chapter to Bitcoin's evolving narrative. Whether driven by profits, security concerns, or estate planning, these movements remind the market that Bitcoin's earliest chapters are far from closed - and that the decisions made by a few thousand early believers continue to shape the trajectory of a $2.3 trillion asset class.