A dormant wallet with 687 BTC revived after 10 years. Bitcoin completed its 1 billionth transaction — exactly 15 years, four months, and four days after its launch in January 2009. In other news, cryptocurrency venture capital investment surged in the first quarter, ending three consecutive quarters of decline.
Bitcoin address dormant in Satoshi era revives after 10 years
A dormant Bitcoin address dating back to the days when Satoshi Nakamoto was still active has revived after 10 years. On May 6, a Bitcoin wallet containing 687 BTC ($43.9 million) moved its holdings to two different wallets.
The wallet first transferred 625.43 BTC to an address beginning with bc1qky, and the remaining 61.9 BTC to bc1qdc. The movement of funds from very old wallets, especially those from the Satoshi era, often sparks curiosity in the crypto community.
The term "Satoshi era" is associated with the early days after Bitcoin was created, when its pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto was active on online forums. Some Satoshi-era wallets are often speculated to be associated with Satoshi himself.
According to Fortune, a total of 1.75 million Bitcoin wallets have been idle for more than a decade. Many of these wallets hold large amounts of BTC, estimated to have been purchased when BTC prices were trading in double digits and currently worth millions of dollars.
These dormant wallets contain 1,798,681 Bitcoins, which is worth about $121 billion at today's prices.
Bitcoin Transactions Pass Billion
The Bitcoin network has processed its billionth transaction, marking a major milestone 15 years after the network was created.
Other data shows that Clark Moody's Bitcoin dashboard shows that transactions have reached 1,000,000,000, which was mined on May 5 at 9:34 PM UTC in block 842,241.
It has been 15 years, four months, and four days since Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin (BTC), mined the network’s first block on January 3, 2009.
This means that Bitcoin has averaged 178,475 transactions per day in its 5,603 days of existence.
Venture Capital Pours Billions into Crypto Startups
Venture capital investment in crypto startups increased significantly in the first quarter as funding grew in sync with the bull market.
Venture capital firms invested $2.49 billion in blockchain and crypto startups between January and March, up 29%, according to Galaxy Research. A total of 603 deals were funded. Capital growth has fallen for three consecutive quarters.
“This is the first increase in invested capital and deal count in three quarters, perhaps indicating that the fourth quarter of 2023 has bottomed out, although continued month-over-month growth — and more meaningful growth — will confirm this in the coming quarters,” the report said.
Infrastructure startups accounted for 24% of the total funding, led by EigenLayer’s $100 million round. Web3 companies received 31% of the total funds raised.
