Mysterious Whale Transfers $8.6B In Bitcoin

On July 4, 2025, a Bitcoin wallet that had been inactive since 2011 suddenly moved 80,000 BTC, equivalent to 8.6 billion dollars. This operation, overshadowing all previous records, intrigues as much as it fascinates. No word, no announcement, just a massive movement captured by the blockchain. Both rare in volume and exceptional due to the age of the funds, this action by an anonymous holder raises questions about the hidden dynamics of the market and the intentions of the major whales.

A record transaction in Bitcoin’s history

While Bitcoin has just crossed the $109,000 mark again on Friday morning, within just a few hours, an anonymous entity moved 80,000 BTC, divided into blocks of 10,000 BTC each, approximately 1 billion dollars per tranche, according to data from blockchain analysis company Arkham Intelligence.

https://twitter.com/arkham/status/1941155893049217416

These funds, dormant since 2011, come from “coinbase transactions”, the first transactions in a mined block, typical of rewards given to miners. The transfer began early in the morning (New York time), with all the funds moved to new addresses.

Julio Moreno, research director at CryptoQuant, stated : “This is the largest daily movement of coins aged 10 years or more in Bitcoin’s history.” This record shatters the previous benchmark, a transfer of 3,700 BTC from another longtime whale, which was already considered exceptional at the time. Another CryptoQuant analyst, J.A. Maartun, emphasized on X (formerly Twitter) : “In eight years of analyzing Bitcoin, I have never seen anything like this.”

🚨 161,326 BTC (~$17,423,208,000) is linked to this entity 😱

🟠 4 x 10,000 BTC txs moved today — untouched for 14+ years
🟠 This is an early miner. Txid 41f351e4 is 1 hop from Coinbase rewards
🟠 120,326 BTC (!!) from this entity is still untouched 👀

This is HUGE. In 8 years… https://t.co/alDghkIhnH pic.twitter.com/UpbYdQAaYz

— Maartunn (@JA_Maartun) July 4, 2025

Although the identity of the holder remains unknown, several elements point analysts toward an early miner, active in the network’s first years. These BTC were generated at a time when the asset was worth less than one dollar and mining was still a craft activity, far from today’s industrial scale. The entity in question appears to be one of the very first builders of the network.

According to Conor Grogan, director at Coinbase, this wallet belonged to an address that held up to 200,000 BTC, which represents :

• 21.5 billion dollars at its peak valuation ;
• A ranking in the top 5 largest BTC holders worldwide ;
• An involvement in the ecosystem long before institutional players arrived.

Although some suggest the possibility of a collective entity or a company active at the time, experts believe that the mining period, well before the era of industrial farms, points more to an OG miner, a pioneering individual from the early days.

Heavy movements with consequences for investor psychology

This massive transfer did not occur in a vacuum. The Bitcoin price, already slightly down from its all-time high of $111,814 in May, was trading at $107,895 at the time of the movement, down nearly 2% over 24 hours.

These maneuvers naturally fuel the fear of an imminent sale, a well-known concern among investors, as whale movements are often perceived as preludes to downward pressure. In a market as sensitive to liquidity and psychology as crypto, such a transaction, even without an actual sale, is enough to weigh on market morale.

Moreover, CryptoQuant highlights a deeper trend: “Whale demand growth has never been stronger.” In other words, even if some large holders make strategic decisions like the one observed on Friday, others—possibly the same ones—continue to accumulate or reposition their assets aggressively. This suggests that the transaction could just as well signal arbitrage, portfolio reorganization, or a custody transfer, as a willingness to sell.

This unprecedented movement reveals a fact often obscured by the hot news about ETFs, regulations, and institutional adoption: the Bitcoin network remains deeply influenced by historical holders, those who believed in and mined Bitcoin before the general public even knew its name.

The awakening of a wallet inactive for 14 years acts here as a reminder. It shows us that power balances on the blockchain are not always visible and that the network’s long memory can resurface at any moment, disrupting the certainties of the present.