Recent developments in the crypto world saw the reactivation of two Ethereum Genesis wallets that had been dormant for almost ten years. On Monday, these wallets sprung into action, transferring 1,140 Ether tokens collectively, with a staggering value of nearly $2.9 million.
The wallets, identified by their opening identifiers “0x27” and “0x7f,” were established 3,630 days ago, coinciding with the mainnet launch of the Ethereum blockchain on July 30, 2015. This launch phase is often referred to as the “Frontier” in Ethereum’s history. The initial Ether (ETH) funding of both wallets came from transactions tagged as “GENESIS” on Etherscan, indicating they were capitalized at the inception of Ethereum.
Originally, Ethereum operated on a proof-of-work blockchain model, akin to the Bitcoin network, complete with traditional mining and block rewards. However, in September 2022, it shifted to a proof-of-stake mechanism during The Merge, a move designed to decrease the energy consumption of the network. TradingView reports that in the nearly ten years these wallets were inactive, ETH has seen an appreciation of 89,450%.
Recently, there has been a surge in dormant whale wallets becoming active. On the last Friday, three Bitcoin (BTC) wallets, inactive for 14 years, woke up and moved billions of dollars’ worth of funds. In 2024, dormant wallets from the Satoshi-era of Bitcoin came back to life, transferring coins valued at nearly $44 million at that time.
Ethereum’s latest update, Pectra, has introduced smart accounts, enhanced scalability, and increased staking limits to its ecosystem. The Pectra upgrade was initiated by Ethereum developers on May 7, and since then, the price of ETH has risen from $1,812 to $2,540, as per CoinMarketCap data.
More developments are on the horizon for Ethereum. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and researcher Toni Wahrstätter recently proposed a gas cap of 16.77 million for singular transactions. The authors argue that this limit would improve Ethereum’s performance and security, increase network stability and make transaction processing costs more predictable.
