An early investor in Ethereum just sold a part of their holdings, resulting in a very impressive return on investment.
This investor received 16,636 ETH back in 2016, and now moved a portion of their coins to a new wallet before selling them for nice profits.
Impressive returns
Data from EmberCN shows, the investor originally bought the Ethereum at $5.23 each, totaling around $87,135. As of September 16, 2024, that same amount of ETH is now worth over $37.6 million, reflecting an increase of 446 times its original price.
一个在 2016 年 2 月以 $5.23 的单价从 @ShapeShift 接收到 16,636 枚 ETH 的远古鲸鱼，时隔 8 年半后开始出售这些 ETH。
他在收到这些 ETH 后一直持有，直到 4 小时前将这 16,636 ETH ($39.62M) 转移到 0xe3e…566 地址，然后以 $2,340 的价格出售了 350 枚 ETH。
他当时收到这 16,636 枚 ETH… pic.twitter.com/F0uljalb7l— 余烬 (@EmberCN) September 16, 2024
Talking about diamond hands, right? After holding the ETH for nearly eight and a half years, the investor transferred all 16,636 ETH to a new wallet and then sold 350 ETH at a price of $2,340 per token. This sale generated a profit of about $819,000.
The sale occurred while ETH was trading at around $2,300, which is a drop from its recent one-month high of $2,820.
We are still pretty sure the seller didn’t mind this drop, because the long-term strategy has proven to be very successful.
This transaction follows a trend where several dormant Ethereum wallets have become active again after years of inactivity.
Lost keys, or dormant wallets?
In the past weeks many large inactive addresses have started moving big amounts of ETH. For example, on August 7, over 789,000 ETH valued at $2 billion were transferred from wallets that had been dormant for 3.3 years.
These wallets were linked to the PlusToken Ponzi scheme that was shut down by Chinese authorities in November 2020.
This activity sparked curiosity in the crypto community, leading many to wonder if the Chinese government might take similar actions to Germany’s past sale of nearly 50,000 BTC seized from criminal activities.
Another big transfer was when a wallet containing over 2,000 ETH reactivated on August 26 after being inactive since the Ethereum Initial Coin Offering in 2014.
Originally worth just $620, the contents of this wallet are now valued at more than $5 million.
Long-term strategy could be lucrative
Despite recent price drops—5.3% in the last day and an 11.8% decline over the past month—many long-term ETH holders are still seeing profits.
About 54% of Ethereum holders are currently in profit at today’s prices, with 74% having held their assets for more than a year.
As more dormant wallets come back into play and investors see substantial profits from their long-term holdings, it may influence market dynamics and encourage others to consider holding onto their cryptocurrencies for extended periods as well.
