Bitcoin Whale Moves $349 Million in BTC After 10-Year Slumber

In brief

Another Bitcoin whale awakened on Thursday, moving $349 million of the largest cryptocurrency by market value.
The whale had not moved the crypto for 10 years, blockchain data shows.
A number of long-term investors have recently moved digital coins after years of dormancy.

Another long-slumbering Bitcoin whale has awakened, moving 3,000 BTC worth over $349 million after 10 years of “HODLing.”

Blockchain data on Thursday showed that the whale moved 100 BTC from 30 addresses to a long-list of new, modern Bitcoin addresses. It wasn’t clear who moved the crypto, which had been sitting at the addresses since 2015, or why.

The movement is among the latest in activity tied to long-dormant whales, and comes as Bitcoin and other assets have fallen from an all-time high near $123,000 in mid July. Bitcoin was recently trading for $117,435, according to CoinGecko data, rising more than 2% after a day of announcements favoring the digital assets industry, but has struggled to break $115,000 this month.

A Bitcoin whale made headlines last month after selling more than 80,000 Bitcoin—over $9 billion at the time—after holding the coins for 14 years.

At first, crypto analysts were baffled by the movements of 10,000 BTC per transaction. But then institutional crypto firm Galaxy said that it had sold the coins for its client in “one of the earliest and most significant exits from the digital asset market.”

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz then said that the huge sale was absorbed by Bitcoin treasury firms looking to snap up more coins.

“Call it grace, call it luck, call it fortune, call it timing—a combination of all that—but the execution happened when there was a tremendous amount of buying,” he said in the firm’s earnings broadcast.

A Bitcoin whale is usually defined by an entity that holds 1,000 BTC—worth $116.2 million at today’s prices—or more.

Whales are not always individual investors but can also be companies that got involved in mining crypto early.

Individual miners used to dominate Bitcoin mining. But as the network has grown, mining has become more difficult, and now such operations are industrial-scale operations.

When whales wake up, selling pressure sometimes follows as investors expect the entity to start cashing in on their stash.