Old addresses move $8,7 billion in BTC after 14 years

• Movement of 80.000 BTC generates speculation in the market
• Arkham points to possible Bitcoin address update
• Transfers do not indicate intention to sell funds

More than 80.000 bitcoins, worth about $8,7 billion, were moved on Friday after more than 14 years of no activity, raising eyebrows among on-chain analysts and investors. The movement was detected by platforms like Arkham, which suggested the transfers may be linked to an address update rather than a potential sale.

BILLIONAIRE BITCOIN WHALE UPDATE

Yesterday's $8 billion transfers were possibly related to address upgrades, moving from 1- addresses to bc1q- addresses.

There are no indications that this whale is selling Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/wdK4Ppkv0J

— Arkham (@arkham) July 5, 2025

Two of the addresses, each containing 10.000 BTC originally received in April 2011, were the first to show activity. At the time, the assets were worth around $7.800. Since then, they have appreciated by more than 13 million percent. Six other associated addresses also transferred the funds on the same date, totaling 80.000 BTC.

Lookonchain indicated that all of the addresses may be under the control of a single entity, originating from the early stages of Bitcoin mining. Coinbase’s Chris Grogan noted that the funds appear to have come from a single miner who once controlled as much as 200.000 BTC. He also speculated that the movements may have been caused by testing with older, potentially compromised private keys.

Bitcoin OG holding at least 80,009 $ BTC ($8.69B) woke up after 14+ years of dormancy and transferred out 40,000 $ BTC ($4.35B) today!

This OG controls about 8 wallets, 2 of which received 20,000 $ BTC ($15,600 at the time, $2.18B now) on April 2, 2011, when the price of $ BTC used to be… pic.twitter.com/F8jULZ6Ee7

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 4, 2025

Despite theories, including about figures such as Roger Ver, the CIA and even Satoshi Nakamoto, Arkham highlighted that the BTC were not sent to exchanges or passed through mixers, which weakens the thesis of an imminent sale. Part of the funds were directed to bech32 addresses, which are more modern and secure, although one of the transactions was redirected to another legacy address, which raises doubts about the holder's intention.

According to Charles Guillemet, CTO of Ledger, the keys were likely stored in an old wallet.dat file and the transaction was signed via software. He highlighted that, from a security point of view, this represents a high risk, since these wallets did not follow modern standards, such as BIP39, and were vulnerable to attacks due to key generation flaws.

The case has reignited the debate about the security of old wallets and the impact of large whales on the cryptocurrency market, especially given the absence of movement for more than a decade.