After more than five years of silence, Bitcoin wallet transfers hit $536 million
This Bitcoin Whale Didn’t Even Send a Test Transaction Before Moving 8,000 Bitcoins
A Bitcoin whale has moved 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $536.5 million from a Coinbase cold storage wallet after five and a half years of inactivity.
According to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, the Bitcoin address “1ABww1…mCSKq” received the entire 8,000 BTC reserve at block 847,490 at 1:26 PM UTC on June 11.
Arkham data shows that the wallet then transferred all bitcoins to the Binance deposit address "15u4H...rMsLa" in exactly one block and 11 minutes. No test transactions were made before these two transfers.
The Coinbase cold storage wallet initially received 8,000 Bitcoins on December 5, 2018, through dozens of transfers, mostly in batches of 200 BTC.
Dormant addresses holding large amounts of assets suddenly becoming active could indicate selling, especially if they go into exchange deposit addresses.
While it is unclear whether the Bitcoin wallet owner cashed out, the transfer represents a nearly 1,700% increase from the $3,750 acquisition price on December 5, 2018.
Related: Bitcoin Hash Ribbon Flashes First Buy Signal Since $25,000 BTC Price
This isn’t the first Bitcoin whale to wake up in recent weeks; on May 12, two linked Bitcoin wallets also moved a total of 1,000 Bitcoins, worth $61 million at the time.
A week ago, a Satoshi-era Bitcoin wallet moved 687 Bitcoins (worth nearly $44 million) to two different addresses.
While at least one early Bitcoin wallet is revived every month, nearly 1.8 million Bitcoin addresses have been dormant for more than a decade, according to an April 24 report from Chainalysis and Fortune magazine.
These wallets (excluding Satoshi’s wallet) represent $121 billion worth of Bitcoin at current prices.
However, many wallet holders have lost or forgotten the seed phrase needed to access their bitcoins, so it is unclear how much of the bitcoins can be recovered.
Bitcoin’s price has plummeted recently, falling 7.5% from a local high of $71,650 on June 7 to $66,250 on June 11.
Despite the decline, the Fear & Greed Index, which tracks sentiment in the cryptocurrency market, remains in “greed” territory with a score of 74 out of 100.
