A massive Bitcoin holder has moved 8,000 Bitcoins valued at $536.5 million from a cold storage wallet on Coinbase after more than five years of dormancy. The transaction took place on June 11 at 1:26 pm UTC, with the entire stash being sent to the Binance deposit address “15u4H…rMsLa” just 11 minutes later, according to data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence. Notably, there were no test transactions made prior to these transfers.
The Bitcoins were originally received by the Coinbase cold storage wallet in various batches on December 5, 2018, with most transfers consisting of 200 BTC each. The sudden activity from dormant addresses holding large amounts of Bitcoin often indicates a potential sale, especially when the funds are sent to an exchange deposit address. While it remains uncertain whether the owner of the Bitcoin wallet cashed out, the transfer represented an astounding 1,700% increase from the acquisition price of $3,750 in 2018.
This recent movement of large amounts of Bitcoin is not an isolated incident, as other Bitcoin whales have also shown activity in recent weeks. On May 12, two linked Bitcoin wallets transferred a combined 1,000 Bitcoins worth $61 million, while a wallet from the era of Satoshi Nakamoto moved 687 Bitcoins valued at nearly $44 million to two separate addresses a week prior.
Although some early Bitcoin wallets are periodically activated, there are still approximately 1.8 million Bitcoin addresses that have remained untouched for over a decade. These dormant wallets, excluding Nakamoto’s wallet, hold Bitcoin worth $121 billion at current prices. However, many owners of these wallets have lost or forgotten the access codes required to retrieve their Bitcoin.
Despite a recent drop in Bitcoin’s price from a high of $71,650 on June 7 to $66,250 on June 11, the Fear & Greed Index, which tracks market sentiment, remains in the “Greed” zone with a score of 74 out of 100. This indicates that overall market sentiment is positive despite the recent price decrease.
In light of these developments, the big question remains: How will Bitcoin payments make a resurgence in the near future?