Darknet Market Wallet Contains More Than $400 Million in BTC, Revealed After 9 Years

According to Arkham Intelligence, a wallet associated with the darknet market Nucleus has revived after nine years. On March 7, the entity controlling the wallet moved $77.5 million worth of BTC to three new addresses, leaving only $365 million in the main wallet.

The wallet had been idle since the market closed in April 2016, with 5,000 BTC in it as vendor and customer deposits. According to Arkham's tracker, those funds were worth about $2.1 million at the time.

Nucleus was one of a number of darknet markets that sprang up at the time, facilitating the sale of other contraband. Although the official story about its closure was that it was hacked, conspiracy theories abound. Some believe that the Nucleus site administrators were running an exit scam, while others believe that the administrators have been arrested.

Like many other darknet markets, transactions on Nucleus were primarily conducted in Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency is harder to trace and therefore provides a degree of anonymity to those engaging in such activities.

The resurgence of the Nucleus wallet comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the U.S. The reserve’s BTC will initially come from cryptocurrencies that have been seized through confiscations, though there is room to acquire more in a “budget-neutral” manner.

Dormant wallets awaken as crypto prices rise

Since the beginning of 2023, the price of Bitcoin has risen significantly. It jumped from less than $17,000 per coin in January 2023 to an all-time high of around $108,000.

Many dormant wallets have awakened during this bull run, some dating back to the 2010s, such as the Nucleus market wallet. In July 2023, a dormant wallet with 1,037 BTC awakened after 11 years, and the owner moved all of the BTC out.

Other dormant wallets have also emerged in 2024. In May 2024, three Satoshi-era wallets came to life, one of which transferred 687 BTC and two others transferred 1,000 BTC, worth $61 million at the time. In June 2024, a whale moved 8,000 BTC from a wallet that had been dormant for five years, and in September 2024, five Satoshi-era miner wallets woke up after 15 years and began moving their tokens.

An interesting development may also emerge in the future: Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said quantum computing could allow hackers to break into early Bitcoin wallets, causing more of the supposedly “lost” Bitcoin to be put back into circulation.