Conor Grogan, head of product at Coinbase, has raised alarms over a potential security breach involving $8.6 billion worth of Bitcoin moved from long-dormant wallets on Thursday.
“There is a small possibility that the $8B in BTC that recently woke up were hacked or compromised private keys,” Grogan posted on X Friday.
The Bitcoin came from eight wallets that had been dormant for more than 14 years.
Grogan pointed to an unusual transaction involving Bitcoin Cash (BCH) made just hours before the massive Bitcoin movements.
He noted a single BCH test transaction from one of the whale clusters, followed by sweeping transfers of 10,000 BTC at a time shortly after.
“What makes me say this is the other BCH wallets have not been touched at all; why wouldn’t they also sweep these?” Grogan added, suggesting the behavior could indicate compromised keys rather than owner activity.
Blockchain intelligence firm Arkham later confirmed that a single entity was behind the transfers, moving all $8.6 billion in BTC from eight wallets that had received the Bitcoin back in April or May 2011.
The assets, untouched for more than 14 years, have now been consolidated into eight new wallets, Arkham said, and have not been moved since the Thursday transactions.
Meanwhile, 10x Research noted that speculation is swirling that these wallets could belong to Roger Ver, the early Bitcoin evangelist known as “Bitcoin Jesus.”
Ver was released on bail from a Spanish prison on June 5, and the reactivated coins were last moved in May 2011, just months after Ver reportedly began acquiring Bitcoin in February 2011.
If true, the wallets could represent billions of dollars under Ver’s control.
Despite speculation over a potential hack, Bitcoin’s price remained steady, down 1% in the last 24 hours and trading at around $108,150 as of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Crypto investors lost over $2.2 billion to hacks, scams, and breaches in the first half of 2025, driven largely by wallet compromises and phishing attacks, according to CertiK’s latest security report.
Wallet breaches alone caused $1.7 billion in losses across just 34 incidents, while phishing scams accounted for over $410 million across 132 attacks.
Two major incidents, including Bybit’s $1.5 billion hack in February and Cetus Protocol’s $225 million exploit in May, skewed the year’s losses upward, together accounting for nearly $1.78 billion.
Without these, losses align more closely with previous years at around $690 million.
Ethereum remained the primary target, suffering over $1.6 billion in losses across 175 events.
The report also pointed to rising sophistication of phishing schemes and ongoing risks from social engineering, urging crypto users to verify links, avoid suspicious sites, and use hardware wallets.
