Whale Watching: $61M Worth of BTC Gets Transferred After Decade of Inactivity
- 1,000 BTC spread among two wallets has been liquidated following more than a decade of inactivity.
- The Bitcoin was initially transferred to the two wallets in 2013, when the price of the coin was under US$150.
- There’s been no public announcement of a big company liquidating assets, which has led the community to believe someone finally reclaimed a lost wallet.
- Imagine the relief when you found the file/piece of paper worth millions of dollars lying around the house!
There’s something incredibly serene about whale watching. You get on a boat, head out to the ocean and watch as some of nature’s most majestic animals go about their business. Of course, this is only true for real life whale watching.
Whale watching in crypto is actually a rather humiliating experience, as you get to see what your life could be like if you’d just made some better decisions (aka invest in Bitcoin in 2009).
However, the movements of these lucky/intelligent/time-machine-owning investors give integral insight into the sentiment of crypto owners. And the past few months have seen a few of the sector’s richest wake up after years of dormancy.
So what’s behind the most recent whale sighting?
Related: Ethereum and Bitcoin Whales Surge Ahead in Accumulation Hinting at Market Recovery
Elon Musk Sneaky? Satoshi Back In Action? Lost Seed Phrase Finally Found?
Two wallets (quite possibly owned by the same investor) awoke from a lengthy slumber last week, liquidating 1,000 BTC worth US$61m (AU$92.3m). The last time these two wallets were touched was way back in 2013, when they each received 500 BTC while the coin was valued at under US$140(AU$211).
Nobody knows for sure what’s happened to the millions in coins, but that hasn’t stopped the community from going rampant with speculation.
One X poster jokingly suggested that it was Satoshi Nakamoto coming back from the grave (implying that he/she/they are dead) to sell out of their holdings. Another insinuated that Elon Musk and Tesla were behind the transaction.
However, perhaps the most amusing yet somehow also most likely explanation is simple – the user, having half-heartedly invested into Bitcoin more than ten years ago, lost access to their seed phrase and the millions in profits from the wallets.
After moving houses and needing to clean out every last nook and cranny, they finally found the piece of paper with the seed phrase to both of their dusty wallets containing a hefty fortune.
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Of course, this narrative is purely fictional and may be miles off from the truth. But it’s always interesting to watch the movement of crypto whales, as they can often be leading indicators for shifting market sentiment.