Dormant Bitcoin Whale Moves $349M After a Decade of Silence

A dormant Bitcoin whale has moved 3,000 BTC, worth over US$349 million, after the coins were untouched for a decade.
The coins were transferred from 30 legacy addresses into new wallets, with the identity of the owner remaining unknown.
This recent activity is part of a trend of large, long-dormant whale movements, including a larger transaction in July where an investor sold over 80,000 BTC through Galaxy Digital.

A dormant Bitcoin (BTC) wallet cluster has sprung back to life, transferring 3,000 BTC, valued at more than US$349M (AU$534M), after a decade of inactivity.

Blockchain records from Thursday show the owner moved 100 Bitcoin from each of 30 separate legacy addresses into a series of newly generated wallets. The coins had remained untouched since 2015. The identity of the entity behind the transfer and the reason for the move remain unknown.

Related: Bitcoin Slips Below Key Support as ETF outflows and Weak Demand Shake Confidence

This could be part of long-silent whale movements that have taken the market by surprise in the last couple of weeks. It comes, evidently, as Bitcoin trades well below last month’s record high of nearly US$123K (AU$188K).

Galaxy Digital Executes $9B Bitcoin Sale from 14-Year-Old Wallets

The latest wake-up follows an even larger movement in July, when more than 80,000 BTC, worth over US$9B (AU$13B) at the time, was sold after 14 years in storage, as Crypto News Australia reported.

Initially, the 10,000-BTC-per-transaction outflows puzzled analysts, until Galaxy Digital confirmed it executed the sale for a client, calling it “one of the earliest and most significant exits from the digital asset market.”

A whale is generally defined as holding at least 1,000 BTC. While some whales are early retail adopters, many are companies that accumulated Bitcoin through mining in its formative years, when individual miners could compete effectively.

Today, that ship is gone, and institutions (and governments) are the ones piling up all the BTC.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at US$117.4K (AU$179K), up over 2% on the day after a string of market-friendly announcements, yet still struggling to maintain levels above US$115K (AU$176K) during August.