After Tuesday and Wednesday’s dormancy drama, one other blast from bitcoin’s previous strutted onto the stage. Three wallets minted in 2013 lastly broke their 12-year silence, shifting 300 BTC—now valued at north of $35 million—prefer it was pocket change.
From $40K to Over $35 Million: 2013 Bitcoin Strikes After 12-Yr Hibernation
At block heights 915227 by 915232, btcparser.com knowledge reveals a trio of P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) wallets snapped out of a 12-year nap, shifting 300 BTC for the primary time since Sept. 2, 2013. Again in Sept. 2013, BTC was going for simply $135 a pop, placing the 300-coin stash at a modest $40,500.
Quick-forward to right now, and with values topping $35 million, that very same hoard has ballooned by 86,419% in 12 years. Every of the three wallets dropped 100 BTC right into a single P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) deal with. The deal with ties again to Bitstamp, hinting the cash are both being parked in alternate custody or—extra doubtless—getting flipped for a hefty revenue or swapped into altcoins on the platform.
Loads of decade-old bitcoin wallets have jolted awake in 2025, with many cash doubtless offered off or traded for different digital belongings. However liquidation isn’t the one motive this 12 months. A lot of dormant wallets tied to legacy P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) addresses are being shuffled into newer codecs, primarily to fend off the looming specter of quantum computing.
Each P2PKH and P2PK wallets expose their public keys onchain the second cash are spent. That’s the place the hazard lies—quantum algorithms like Shor’s might, in principle, reverse-engineer personal keys from these uncovered public keys in minutes. To get forward of that risk, long-term holders—even these clutching cash from Bitcoin’s earliest days—are migrating funds into newer, quantum-resistant deal with varieties.
Since all 300 cash from 2013 funneled straight into Bitstamp, the percentages lean closely towards a sell-off relatively than mere housekeeping. Whereas quantum issues clarify some dormant pockets exercise, this particular case appears to be like way more transactional. With the alternate concerned, it’s secure to imagine these bitcoins weren’t simply shifting—they had been traded.
