Early Bird Ethereum Investor Awakens: $620 Investment Becomes $5M

In a display of crypto’s long game paying off, a participant in Ethereum’s 2014 Initial Coin Offering (ICO) awoke after 10 years of dormancy and deposited 2,000 ETH that they had acquired at the time onto Binance.

If they cashed out, the potential windfall from a mere $620 investment during Ethereum’s genesis would represent an eye-watering 8,270x return.

A Long Sleep Ends

According to blockchain data tracker Lookonchain, the dormant wallet first signaled life by moving a tiny fraction of ETH, just 0.002 coins, less than an hour before the main deposits started. Then, over the past two days, the holder systematically split and transferred the whole stash to Binance across multiple transactions, the largest being nearly 1,000 ETH.

Even though this movement of funds has coincided with a period of intense volatility for ETH caused by geopolitical shockwaves from the ongoing military conflict between Israel and Iran, the Ethereum veteran could make as much as $5.2 million from their holding, potentially selling each coin for more than $2,600 as things stand, after buying them for approximately $0.31 a piece in 2014.

Ethereum Price Action

The Israel-Iran conflict saw the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap plunge dramatically, falling from $2,760 to a low of $2,470 within hours.

The more than 10% drop erased ETH’s recent surge to a 15-week high near $2,830. Additionally, over $1 billion in leveraged positions across the market were liquidated, with Binance data revealing concentrated ETH long liquidations between $2,650 and $2,430.

Following the retracement, Ethereum has shown a measure of resilience, climbing about 3.2% over the past week to stay head and shoulders above the wider crypto market, which dipped roughly 2.7% in the same period.

At press time, the asset was up 3.9% in the last 24 hours, hovering around $2,616, after oscillating between $2,494 and $2,628. Still, the altcoin is down 26.6% across the past 12 months, and more than 46% shy of its all-time high of $4,878 set some three years ago.