Two Whale Wallets Move $3 Million in Bitcoin After 13 Years of Inactivity

More than $3 million worth of Bitcoin just moved after 13 years of dormancy. Two wallets holding 50 BTC each, mined back in 2010, were moved to different wallets. 

It is unclear who the owners of the cryptocurrency are but they are the sixth and seventh whales to have moved large quantities of BTC this year. 

The movements come as the price of the largest digital asset soars following renewed institutional investor interest. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up nearly 15% in seven days, trading hands for $30,381, according to CoinGecko. 

The term "whales" refers to investors who hoard huge amounts of Bitcoin and don’t touch it for years. 

Such investors—also known as “HODLers”—are the most successful. Those who buy BTC and sell it quickly usually lose out, while those who buy it and sit on it for years tend to make a profit. 

This is because Bitcoin experiences short-term volatility but in the long-term its price has appreciated massively. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap back in July 2010 was worth a fraction of a cent. 

BitcoinBTC · USD

$77,320+22%

24H7D1M1YYTD

Aug 14Aug 21Aug 29Sep 5Sep 13

$81.8k$75.5k$69.2k$62.9k

24h HighHigh$77,479

24h LowLow$77,055

VolVol$534.8M

Market projectionsOdds by Myriad

Today$76,000 to $78,000$76k–$78k91% chance

Price data by CoinGeckoCoinGeckoMore Bitcoin news and projections →

Dr. Kirill Kretov, a developer of tools for automated trading and blockchain analyst, previously told Decrypt that Bitcoin mined back in 2010 was probably down to computer experts experimenting with the technology but that it was hard to know whether the Bitcoin had since landed in the hands of commercial entities.

"There is this unique spirit of crypto anarchy and technological pioneering behind such elder addresses," Kretov told Decrypt. "It's like a way-back machine, and thousands of people are left to speculate about why those bitcoins were transferred now."

He also mentioned that there's a theory that "elder" whale wallets shift BTC to send each other signals about when it's time to pump the price of the world's oldest and largest cryptocurrency.

"There are some researchers who take notes on price charts about those awakenings, trying to predict the future price," he said. "Luckily, I'm not one of those."

Other whale movements include a holder in April who hadn’t touched their coins for a decade shuffling $7.8 million-worth of BTC to new wallets.

And just last week, a long-term investor moved 50 BTC after 11 years of inactivity to a new wallet.