This Person Saved 357 Bitcoins For 11 Years, Now Worth IDR 551 Billion

Bitcoin. (Photo; Doc. Consumerist)

JAKARTA - The movement of crypto whales, aka large investors, is usually the subject of conversation among the crypto community. Because every whale movement, especially when trading crypto assets, often affects market direction movements. This time, one of the inactive Bitcoin whales for 11 years suddenly began to move into the market.

The Whale Alert blockchain data monitoring platform, on Sunday, December 29, reported an old Bitcoin address that was reactivated after being inactive for 11 years. The whale-owned crypto wallet is known to have transferred 357 BTC which is currently worth around US$34,070,177 (Rp551.9 billion). The whale sent Bitcoin to the new wallet address.

Bitcoin wallets, which have been inactive for decades, often cause public unrest. Not without reason, this is because the wallet is likely owned by the initial pioneer of Bitcoin. Meanwhile, there are many factors that cause the inactivatement of crypto wallets over the course of a dozen years.

The causes are quite diverse, ranging from owners who forget passwords, storing assets for the long term or commonly called HODL, to security reasons. In this case, owners of a crypto asset may feel that the current market conditions are quite interesting to sell or re-invest their assets, or maybe have just rediscovered the wallet key. However, the exact reason is still a mystery.

On Sunday, December 30, the price of Bitcoin was at 94,673 US dollars (Rp1.53 billion), having previously reached a record high of 108,316 US dollars (Rp1.75 billion) on December 17. Unfortunately, this momentum is starting to slow down, and the price of Bitcoin is now starting to decline its first monthly since September.

However, analysts are still optimistic about price movements in the remainder of late December. According to analytic firm Santiment, although trading volume is low, the accumulated trend by "paus" or large investors could trigger an unexpected price spike before the end of 2024.

Predictions for 2025 also show bright prospects for Bitcoin. According to a Galaxy Research report, Bitcoin is expected to surpass 150,000 US dollars (Rp2.43 billion) in the first half of 2025 and could reach 185,000 US dollars (Rp 3.0 billion) by the end of the year.

The main driving factor includes institutional adoption, corporations, and even national governments. Over time, Bitcoin has shown faster appreciation than other asset classes, such as S&P 500 and gold, and this trend is expected to continue. In fact, Galaxy predicts that Bitcoin could reach 20% of the gold market cap.