Since 2022, personal Bitcoin transactions – using CoinJoin technology – have tripled, driven by large Bitcoin whales ramping up their Bitcoin purchases, according to data from CryptoQuant.
These whale Bitcoin addresses are primarily associated with spot Bitcoin trading funds (BTC) on exchanges, MicroStrategy, and custodial wallets, according to Ki Young Ju of CryptoQuant. He explained that whales 'often use anonymous transactions' to transfer their funds to new institutional investors in a post on X on December 26.
CoinJoin transactions combine inputs and outputs from multiple parties in a way that obscures who might own an unspent transaction.
Young Ju dismissed the opinion that CoinJoin transactions are primarily used by hackers to launder stolen money. He emphasized that Chainalysis's report on the $2.2 billion loss in 2024 only accounted for 0.5% of the total $377 billion of Bitcoin that was transacted.
The number of CoinJoin Bitcoin transactions since 2012. Source: CryptoQuant
Although publicly listed companies must disclose their assets, Young Ju stated that there are still unidentified Bitcoin whales that have accumulated up to 420K Bitcoin, worth over $40 billion.
"Who are these whales?" Young Ju asked.
Some commenters on the post wondered whether a country is quietly building a Bitcoin reserve. Meanwhile, others suggested it could be a sanctioned country looking to mitigate sanction risks.
Recently, Russia passed a law allowing international trade using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets.
The potential misuse of CoinJoin has attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies worldwide, including the United States. Authorities arrested the founders of the privacy-focused Bitcoin service Samourai Wallet and seized its website in April.
At that time, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that Samourai's CoinJoin feature had facilitated $2 billion in illegal transactions and helped launder over $100 million from 'dark web' markets, such as Silk Road and Hydra Market.
The Dutch authorities also arrested Alexey Pertsev, the creator of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, in August 2022. He was convicted of money laundering in May 2024.