After Tuesday and Wednesday’s dormancy drama, another blast from bitcoin’s past strutted onto the stage. Three wallets minted in 2013 finally broke their 12-year silence, shifting 300 BTC — now valued at north of $35 million — like it was pocket change.
At block heights 915227 through 915232, btcparser.com data reveals a trio of P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) wallets snapped out of a 12-year nap, moving 300 BTC for the first time since Sept. 2, 2013. Back in Sept. 2013, BTC was going for just $135 a pop, putting the 300-coin stash at a modest $40,500.
Fast-forward to today, and with values topping $35 million, that same hoard has ballooned by 86,419% in 12 years. Each of the three wallets dropped 100 BTC into a single P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) address. The address ties back to Bitstamp, hinting the coins are either being parked in exchange custody or — more likely — getting flipped for a hefty profit or swapped into altcoins on the platform.
Plenty of decade-old bitcoin wallets have jolted awake in 2025, with many coins likely sold off or traded for other digital assets. But liquidation isn’t the only motive this year. A number of dormant wallets tied to legacy P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) addresses are being shuffled into newer formats, mainly to fend off the looming specter of quantum computing.
Both P2PKH and P2PK wallets expose their public keys onchain the moment coins are spent. That’s where the danger lies — quantum algorithms like Shor’s could, in theory, reverse-engineer private keys from those exposed public keys in minutes. To get ahead of that threat, long-term holders — even those clutching coins from Bitcoin’s earliest days — are migrating funds into newer, quantum-resistant address types.
Since all 300 coins from 2013 funneled straight into Bitstamp, the odds lean heavily toward a sell-off rather than mere housekeeping. While quantum concerns explain some dormant wallet activity, this specific case looks far more transactional. With the exchange involved, it’s safe to assume these bitcoins weren’t just moving — they were traded.
