Satoshi Era Bitcoin Wallet Moves $4.7 Billion to Galaxy Digital

A dormant Bitcoin wallet from the Satoshi era, which had been inactive for 14 years, moved a significant amount of Bitcoin on Monday evening. The wallet transferred 40,009 BTC, valued at approximately $4.7 billion, to the crypto exchange Galaxy Digital. The identity of the wallet owner remains unknown.

Following this initial transfer, 6,000 BTC, worth around $706 million, was subsequently moved to the centralized exchanges Binance and Bybit. This action raised speculation among blockchain analysts that the wallet owner might be preparing to sell a portion of their holdings. However, experts caution that this movement does not necessarily indicate an imminent sell-off.

The wallet had last been active in 2011, during what is commonly referred to as the "Satoshi Era." The recent transfer represents about half of the wallet's total holdings, with the owner still retaining 40,000 BTC in private storage. The movement occurred over eight separate transactions, with the largest single transfer valued at over $500 million.

This activity comes amidst a series of large Bitcoin transfers from long-dormant wallets over the past month, coinciding with record-breaking Bitcoin prices. On July 4, another unidentified Bitcoin whale moved $8 billion in what analysts described as the largest daily transfer of 10-year-old Bitcoin in history.

Rajiv Sawhney, the head of international portfolio management at Wave Digital Assets International, suggests that the recent whale movement might not be a clear indicator of an upcoming sale. Instead, it could be a strategic move to obscure the wallet owner's intentions and set up future deals. Sawhney explained that some participants prefer moving their funds to a centralized exchange (CEX) because the wallet activity becomes opaque within the exchange's omnibus account. This allows for negotiations with market makers to offload large amounts of Bitcoin without alerting the broader market.

Having funds in a CEX could enable the whale to make agreements with large buyers to offload their holdings in the event of a price crash, thereby avoiding the risk of spooking the market with a public sell-off. Galaxy Digital, the exchange to which the funds were transferred, offers services to facilitate significant levels of market maker activity through its platform.