More than $3.5 million of a $72 million Bitcoin block from a whale wallet from the "Satoshi era" has been unexpectedly transferred to a cryptocurrency exchange.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence said that from September 24 to October 3, the whale wallet address 3JZsd...QerUW has withdrawn Bitcoin from its wallet several times after a long period of dormancy, bringing a total of $3.58 million to the exchange. Blockchain data shows that this address is holding 1,169 Bitcoin, equivalent to $72.4 million at current exchange rates.

In the cryptocurrency world, a whale wallet is used to refer to addresses that hold more than 1,000 Bitcoins. Addresses created before Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared from the community in April 2011 are called “Satoshi-era” Bitcoin wallets.

The move by 3JZsd...QerUW is notable because the wallet has been active since early 2009, just months after Bitcoin was created in 2008. Addresses from the Satoshi era are speculated to be directly linked to the identity of Bitcoin's creator. Satoshi is estimated to have held around 1.1 million Bitcoins when he mined the first blocks on the entire network.

The 3JZsd...QerUW wallet's activity comes just ahead of HBO's upcoming release of its documentary Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery next week. The producers claim that Satoshi's true identity will be revealed in the film.

According to Cointelegraph, American computer scientist Len Sassaman is likely to be cast as Satoshi in the HBO documentary. Sassaman was a renowned cryptographer who committed suicide on July 3, 2011, more than two months after Satoshi disappeared from public view. A memorial to Sassaman was encoded into block 138,725 of the Bitcoin network.

However, some of Sassaman's 13-year-old Twitter posts criticized Bitcoin for lacking "privacy" and "fraud-reversal protection" features. In 2021, Sassaman's late wife Meredith Patterson said: "To my knowledge, Len is not Satoshi."

To this day, the true identity of Bitcoin's creator remains one of the Internet's biggest mysteries. Analysts have been trying to track down old wallet addresses to identify Bitcoin's creator. When any wallet from the "Satoshi era" awakens, the search for his identity heats up again. Many believe that with 1.1 million Bitcoins in his possession, Satoshi's every move could cause a huge market swing, given the increasingly limited supply. A large amount of dormant Bitcoins that are now starting to awaken could cause a lot of price swings.

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