Author: Brayden Lindrea, CoinTelegraph; Translated by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance
A Bitcoin whale has moved 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $536.5 million from Coinbase cold wallets after five and a half years of inactivity.
According to blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, the Bitcoin address “1ABww1…mCSKq” received all 8,000 BTC at block 847,490 at 1:26 PM (UTC) on June 11.
Arkham data shows that the wallet then transferred all the bitcoins to the Binance deposit address "15u4H...rMsLa" exactly 1 block and 11 minutes later. No test transactions were performed before these two transfers.
Details of Bitcoin whales transferring $536 million to Binance deposits. Source: Arkham Intelligence
The Coinbase cold wallet initially received 8,000 Bitcoin on December 5, 2018, through dozens of transfers, mostly in batches of 200 BTC.
Dormant addresses holding large amounts of Bitcoin suddenly becoming active could indicate sales, especially if they are going 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 acquisition price of $3,750 on December 5, 2018.
This isn’t the first Bitcoin whale to wake up in recent weeks, as 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 Bitcoin wallet from the Satoshi era transferred 687 Bitcoins, worth nearly $44 million, to two different addresses.
While at least one early Bitcoin wallet wakes up 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.
At current prices, these wallets (excluding Satoshi’s wallet) represent $121 billion worth of Bitcoin.
However, many wallet owners have lost or forgotten the seed phrase needed to access their bitcoins, so it is unclear how much of them can be recovered.
Bitcoin has recently suffered a price crash, falling 7.5% from a local high of $71,650 on June 7 to $66,250 on June 11.
Despite the price drop, the Fear & Greed Index, which tracks sentiment in the cryptocurrency market, remained in “greed” territory with a score of 74 out of 100.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market sentiment on June 11. Source: Alternative.me
