Arkham says the massive Bitcoin whale transfer might be due to a wallet upgrade, but others in the industry have their own theories.
Blockchain intelligence firm Arkham says the recent $8.6 billion in Bitcoin that was moved on Thursday for the first time in over 14 years doesn’t appear to be heading for a sell-off.
“There are no indications that this whale is selling Bitcoin,” Arkham said in an X post on Friday. Arkham firm added that the eight transfers — which moved 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) at a time from eight wallets that were untouched for over 14 years — may be possibly due to the owner upgrading from the original legacy wallet to a Native SegWit address, which are said to have improved security and lower fees.
“Yesterday’s $8 billion transfers were possibly related to address upgrades, moving from 1-addresses to bc1q-addresses,” Arkham said.
Arkham said on Friday that all the Bitcoin was originally deposited into the wallets on April 2 or May 4, 2011, and remained untouched for more than 14 years. The firm added that the Bitcoin is now stored in eight new wallets and hasn’t been moved since.
In a post on the same day, blockchain research firm 10x Research said that while there’s no clear evidence the large amount of Bitcoin is being prepared for sale, its analysis has “long suggested that early holders are gradually offloading into ETF and corporate treasury demand.”
Only in February, prominent Bitcoiner PlanB revealed that he converted all of his Bitcoin holdings to spot Bitcoin ETFs. “Not having to hassle with keys gives me peace of mind. I guess I am not a maxi anymore,” PlanB said in a Feb. 15 X post.
Meanwhile, Coinbase’s head of product, Conor Grogan, raised a more alarming possibility.
Grogan said there’s a slight chance a hack caused the $8.6 billion Bitcoin transfer, and if so, it could be the largest robbery ever.
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“If true (again, I’m speculating on straws here), this would be by far the largest heist in human history,” Grogan said in an X post on Friday,
The transfers caught the attention of the broader crypto industry, with some taking a light-hearted approach. Binance former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said, “I got into crypto too late.”
“After seeing the 2011 whales casually moving crypto they got for $0.1,” Zhao added.
