An ancient Ethereum address dating all the way back to the pre-mine era was activated earlier today, according to data provided by Whale Alert.

The address, which had remained untouched for almost a decade, contained $3.7 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) when it was finally activated.

Close to 72 million tokens were distributed to early initial coin offering (ICO) investors, project contributors and non-profits.

The pre-mine has long been a source of controversy within the investment community, with some naysayers arguing that Ethereum's launch was not fair compared to Bitcoin.

It is relatively rare for pre-mine Ethereum tokens to get activated, and the latest development has caused some speculation within the community. Some have assumed that the long-time Ether holder is finally taking profits after souring on the token. "He’s going to see that the price hasn’t moved in 9 years," a social media user quipped.

The most recent activation comes as Ether is getting slammed for its severe underperformance.

Earlier this week, the ETH/BTC pair plunged to yet another multi-year low of 0.021. It has now collapsed by roughly 40% during this year alone.

On Sunday, Bloomberg published a scathing article about Ethereum, arguing that the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is struggling to deliver on its early promise. Layer-2s taking activity and fees away from the main network have been cited as the key reason behind the dramatic underperformance of the main cryptocurrency.