How Whale Reclaimed $74M in ETH Locked in ENS Auction

Crypto Assets Reclaimed after Two Years and Five Months

On July 31, a whale using the domain “darkmarket.eth” reclaimed 39,712 Ether (ETH) worth $119 million, that had been locked up in the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) auction for two years and five months. This was flagged by on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain.

The ENS founder and lead developer Nick Johnson had previously tweeted a reminder for the owner of the darkmarket.eth domain to reclaim their ETH from its first two years. He also provided a link that would allow those with ETH deposited in ENS auctions to reclaim their crypto assets.

However, despite the reminder, the funds were reclaimed only after two years and five months. Johnson also highlighted that there are still over 100,000 deeds that remain unclaimed at ENS, which are worth tens of thousands in ETH. He urged users to check their addresses and claim their crypto funds.

This week, two wallets that had been dormant for years have suddenly become active. On July 19, a wallet containing pre-mined Ether worth $116 million was transferred to a Kraken exchange address after eight years, resulting in a 5x return on the wallet’s initial $20 million value. Then on July 24, a wallet that had been dormant for 11 years moved over $30 million in Bitcoin (BTC). This address acquired the crypto assets in April 2012 when Bitcoin was worth only $4.92, making the stash worth just $5,108 at the time.