An Ethereum wallet containing over $5 million worth of ETH has been activated for the first time in six and a half years as the second-largest cryptocurrency is struggling to exit a bearish trend.
A dormant Ethereum wallet containing 1,947 ETH ($5.1 million) has been activated for the first time since 2015, according to Twitter account Whale Alert.
Considering that the original investment was only $2,336, whoever owns the aforementioned address has made a staggering 220,799% profit.
It’s not clear whether someone had such a high level of conviction or simply discovered a dusty old wallet. It’s also possible that the owner finally managed to unlock his or her Ether after losing access to the crypto fortune.
Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain, was launched in 2015 in order to decentralize the internet following an $18 million crowdsale that made it possible to fund the project’s development. The project was first announced by co-founder Vitalik Buterin during a Bitcoin conference in January 2014.
The cryptocurrency originally started trading at $2.77 on the Kraken exchange before dropping to just $0.68 due to selling pressure.
Despite the rough start, Ethereum started witnessing rapid growth and exploded in popularity during the initial coin offering boom of 2017, with its price peaking at $1,400.
The ETH token careened to a minuscule $85 during the 2018 bear market before witnessing an enormous price rally in 2021.
The cryptocurrency benefited from the immense speculative frenzy in the decentralized finance sector and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), ultimately peaking at a whopping $4,878 on Nov. 10.
Its price has now retraced to $2,744, which marks a 44% correction.
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