An early Ethereum ICO investor transferred all 2,680 ETH acquired in 2014 to new addresses after more than 11 years of inactivity. At the time of the transactions, the funds were worth approximately $5 M, delivering roughly a 6,000x return on the original investment.
The funds remain in wallets for now and have not been sent to exchanges.
Such awakenings of Ethereum ICO-era addresses happen regularly: holders keep tokens received at the network’s launch for years and then move them, potentially taking profits.
According to research by on-chain analysts at KeychainX, as of mid-2026, 621 out of approximately 8,900 addresses that participated in the Ethereum presale had still made no outgoing transactions and collectively held more than 1.42 million ETH. In 2025, 20 such addresses became active for the first time in many years, while around 10 more became active in 2026.
The Ethereum ICO ran from July to September 2014 and raised around $18 M in Bitcoin. The network launched in July 2015.
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