Wallet with 20 BTC Reactivated After 12 Years

In March 2026, a wallet that had been inactive for nearly 12 years was reactivated and sent approximately 20 BTC, worth about $1,000,000, to a cryptocurrency custodian. Three weeks later, nearly the same amount was returned, with a difference of only 4,500 satoshis, which is about $3. The funds were returned in three installments over three days -- seven, seven, and six bitcoins. Analyst Bennet speculated that the round numbers correspond to the daily withdrawal limit of custodians. In May, the owner sent the entire amount to an address from which the coins can no longer be spent, effectively burning them. The analytical firm Chainalysis identified five addresses with strong signs of a common owner that received funds in April 2014 and sent nearly identical amounts to the same deposit address of an exchange. Most of the coins trace back to the Mt. Gox exchange, which collapsed in February 2014, suggesting that the owner is among the early holders who managed to withdraw their bitcoins. One of the addresses sent a total of 19.6 BTC in sixty transactions between 2022 and 2024, during which the price of bitcoin quadrupled.

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