An ancient Bitcoin wallet was awakened, turning $120 into $3 million

A parade of long-dormant Bitcoin wallets coming back to life shows no signs of slowing, with at least four ancient stashes recently springing into activity in the past few days—one of which appears poised to sell.

According to blockchain monitoring by Galaxy Research, the reactivated wallets together moved 202.84 BTC, worth about $15.73 million, between August 29 and September 4.

The largest among them held 146.06 BTC, worth roughly $11.31 million, and had been inactive since November 2013, nearly 12.8 years. Bought at an average cost basis near $595, this wallet realized a gain of about 12,902%. Closely following, a wallet with 40 BTC dormant since November 2011, now valued at about $3.09 million, saw a staggering increase of 2,571,899% from its average cost of about $3. That means this patient holder managed to turn almost $120 of Bitcoin into more than $3 million—just by holding for nearly 15 years.

Two smaller wallets rounded out this batch: one inactive since June 2011 holding 10 BTC, worth about $777,000, and another last active in February 2011 with 6.78 BTC, valued around $551,000. The oldest coins brought astronomical paper returns, with assets from 2011 up over 2,000%, and in one case, the original cost surged over 500,000%.