Key Takeaways
- Two old bitcoin holders woke up Saturday, moving 200 BTC worth more than $16 million combined.
- Bitcoins 2011 holder watched roughly $324 grow into $8 million, a paper gain topping 2.46 million%.
- Bitgo received the 2013 miners 100 BTC, but whether those coins are headed for sale remains unknown.
Bitcoin From 2011 and 2013 Suddenly Stirs
September has logged a slew of unique sleeping bitcoin wallets from ancient days, and Sept. 19 was no different. Before the 2011 wallet, a distinct group of four legacy Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH) wallets shifted 25 BTC each. All four transfers were confirmed at block height 967722.
All the wallets were either first created in February or March 2013. Bitcoin prices were all over the place during those two months, and the Cyprus banking crisis reached its absolute peak in March. On March 1, bitcoin traded for $32 per coin, and by the 31st of that same month in 2013, it was trading for $91.95. Market data shows that these four P2PKH addresses paid very little for the 100 BTC.
Then, ten blocks later, at block 967732, an even older wallet moved 100 BTC from an address born on Nov. 2, 2011. This was a single transaction, and the 100 BTC worth $8 million moved from a P2PKH address to a newer Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash (P2WPKH) wallet. The day these so-called sleepers were first acquired, bitcoins price was $3.24 per unit.
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This means the owner‘s cost for the 100 BTC was far lower than the $3,200 the 2013 address owner’s cache was, as it was around $324 for a 100 BTC that day. The 2011 wallets unrealized gains stand at 2,469,035% today, while the 2013 bitcoin logged an unrealized gain of 249,900%. The vintage 2011 wallet recorded a privacy score of 55 out of 100, according to blockchair.com stats.
The funds were swept, and the user leveraged the “send everything” option. The new P2WPKH wallet is not identified by any major explorer, including Arkham Intelligence. The address is brand new and not associated with any over-the-counter (OTC) dealer or centralized exchange (CEX). Now, while we dont know much about the 2011 wallet owner from then on, the 2013 address owner is a different story altogether.
A 2013 Miners Trail Leads Straight to Bitgo
We can safely assume that the four transfers that sent 25 BTC into one consolidated wallet was a single entity. Blockchair gave the transfer a privacy score of around 60 out of 100, and that too was due to the fact that it was a sweep. Basically, an address sweep is the process of transferring all the funds from a paper or temporary wallet into another wallet in a single transaction. This particular sweep found its way to a single P2WPKH wallet that belongs to the custodian Bitgo.
Arkhams explorer flags the wallet as a known Bitgo address, and this particular wallet has been known to accept batches of 100 BTC a few other times before this instance. Onchain heuristics indicate that this particular entity was a bitcoin miner, as the first time it sent Bitgo funds, it sent batches of 25 BTC that were initially block rewards from March 2013. This particular miner has been sending Bitgo batches like these since August 2025.
The patience of both of these bitcoin adopters is quite striking, and the fact that BTC is trading above $81,000 might also signal a market top or shift. The 2011 wallet owner‘s transfer and anonymity can only leave us to speculate, but the 2013 miner’s Bitgo moves suggest calculated liquidation or custodial strategies. It is possible that the funds are simply being held by Bitgo and not sold, as the company is primarily a custodian. However, from that transfer out, theres no way of knowing.