In an ENS auction, 39,712 Ethereum that had been locked was recovered by its owner after years. A whale of ETH, who acquired and used the “darkmarket.eth” address, regained their assets worth over $119 million and transferred them to a new wallet. Nick Johnson, the founder of ENS (Ethereum Name Service), warned users on Twitter to check their own addresses.
Thousands of Ethereum Locked!
In 2021, Nick Johnson, the founder and lead developer of ENS, tweeted to the owner of the “darkmarket.eth” domain to recover their locked ETH deposits starting from the first two years. The ENS founder also provided a link that would allow those who had deposited ETH in ENS auctions to reclaim their digital assets.
However, despite the reminder, the funds were only recovered two years and five months later. On July 31st, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain reported that the funds had been recovered and that the 63,744 ETH of darkmarket.eth, which was worth over $119 million at the time of writing this article, had been transferred to a different wallet.
According to Johnson, there are still over 100,000 unclaimed users on ENS. The domain service developer emphasized that these users may have assets worth tens of thousands of Ethereum and urged them to check their own addresses and claim their funds.
Dormant Wallets Awakening
Meanwhile, at least two dormant wallets worth millions of dollars have awakened this month. On July 19th, a wallet containing $116 million worth of ETH remained untouched for eight years before transferring its funds to a different wallet. The wallet, which cost its owner $20 million, gained a fivefold increase in value, providing returns for the ETH whale.
On July 24th, a dormant Bitcoin wallet awakened after 11 years, while BTC was valued at $29,447. The Bitcoin wallet contained $30 million worth of BTC. The address had purchased 1,037 BTC for $5,108 when the assets were worth only $4.92 in April 2021.
