A recently released report from Glassnode, a leading analytics and data provider on the cryptocurrency market, suggested that a significant chunk of Bitcoin’s supply hasn’t been utilized since its inception in 2009.
As people involved in the crypto sector know, currently, the total supply of Bitcoin amounts to 18.5 million. Out of these, 1.8 million Bitcoin (about 10% of the overall supply) are locked in inactive Bitcoin addresses and haven’t been used in any transaction in over 10 years. According to Coin360, a popular crypto exchange, the cumulative value of these unutilized Bitcoins stands at $23 billion at present.
Most crypto experts believe that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the digital currency progenitor, Bitcoin owns the untouched cryptos. The mysterious inventor of Bitcoin disappeared from the crypto community in 2011. It’s presumed that Nakamoto owns over a million Bitcoins and they might be lost forever.
There’s a popular opinion among crypto enthusiasts that Satoshi might be sitting on a potential volcano. If he proceeds and sells all his assets at once, he’ll influence the market in a huge and possibly, negative way. It may lead to a crash in the Bitcoin market and destroy its value.
Even though these crypto assets are in stagnation for a long period, few of the earlier uncirculated assets started to move and be used in May, this year. It began when a Bitcoin wallet with coins transferred 50 BTC suddenly to two different Bitcoin addresses. The most surprising aspect of the matter was the inactivity of the account since February 2009.
Experts associated with the crypto industry suggested two main theories regarding this unusual transaction. One, the crypto assets may have been owned by the family of Hal Finney, the late computer scientist and cryptographer, software developer, Martti Malmi, or Satoshi Nakamoto themself. Except for Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity remains mysterious, these speculations have been denied by the people in question.
Second, there’s a belief in the community that an external developer accessed the private key of the wallet and forced the coins into their address. Despite this being practically impossible, it’s theoretically achievable, as claimed by Bitcoin developers.
