The coins, mined when Bitcoin traded at US$0.10, were moved using modern protocol features like SegWit (scalability), Taproot (privacy), and RBF (fee adjustments), drawing attention to evolving blockchain infrastructure.
Pete Rizzo, who goes by the moniker The Bitcoin Historian on X, first flagged the transaction via mempool.space.
JUST IN: Someone just moved 50 #BITCOIN worth $5 MILLION that they mined 15 years ago
They HODL’ed from $0.10 to $100k. Legend 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Ol8Q3vdlgi
— The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) February 4, 2025
Speculation about the owner’s identity — including potential ties to pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht — remains unverified, as attributing early-era wallets without owner confirmation is unreliable.
Dan Robustus, co-founder of the crypto market intelligence firm Messari, highlighted the wallet’s use of a Pay-to-Public-Key (p2pk) format — common in Bitcoin’s early years but vulnerable to quantum attacks via algorithms like Shor’s. The transfer may signal efforts to move quantum-vulnerable funds to safer keys, Robustus suggested.
p2pk output. Maybe someone moving quantum-vulnerable funds to safer keys.
— Dan (@robustus) February 4, 2025
Quantum risks regained attention in late 2024 after Google’s Willow chip advanced the technology.
The transaction showcased Bitcoin’s 15,000,000% ROI since 2009, when mining required basic CPUs. Converting such historically significant coins to fiat without scrutiny would be challenging, analysts note.
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