On April 21, a mysterious bitcoin whale transferred a significant amount of bitcoin, worth $60 million, from an old stash dating back to 2012 and 2013. This event caused a stir in the crypto community as it was associated with the infamous Mt Gox saga and involved an address that was linked to two significantly large BTC transfers last year. However, what caught people’s attention was the fact that the bitcoins in question had been dormant for years.
The transfer occurred at a time when the price of bitcoin was struggling to hold above the $28K region, having fallen below the $29K zone. It triggered speculation on social media platforms about the identity of the whale and their motives. At 8:19 a.m. Eastern Time on April 21, the Twitter account @lookonchain tweeted about the whale, stating that it received 1,129 bitcoin in October 2012 and May 2013, when prices were $12 and $195, respectively.
The social media account’s tweet generated a lot of attention, with one individual speculating that the bitcoin transfer could be linked to an OG Silk Road vendor who had been released. Following the transfer of 278.89 BTC by the aforementioned address and the subsequent tweet by the social media account, the address “12At4” sent another 184.23 BTC. In total, the address that once held 1,129 bitcoin has sent a total of 464 BTC worth $13 million at current bitcoin exchange rates.
Bitcoin blockchain parsers have been detecting old whales moving dormant coins for years. However, statistics from Btcparser.com show that older bitcoins born in 2009, 2010, and 2011 are becoming rare spends. It is worth noting that the last known transactions from 2009 occurred just over a year ago on April 7 and 8, 2022, when around five Bitcoin block rewards mined in 2009 were spent in a series of transfers. Prior to that, the last time a 2009 block reward was spent was on March 20, 2020, which was nine days after the infamous “Black Thursday” event.
Interestingly, a significant number of older Bitcoin transactions have come from 2016 and 2017 in the past few months, according to Btcparser.com and further research. This shift has sparked curiosity among crypto enthusiasts, who are speculating about why dormant coins from that period are suddenly being moved.
As of now, the “12At4” bitcoin address still holds 665.65 BTC, and the owner’s corresponding bitcoin cash (BCH) address still holds approximately 1,128.77 BCH. The identity of the whale behind the transfer remains unknown, leaving people to wonder about the reason behind the sudden movement of old coins. Theories range from simple profit-taking to the possibility of a future market-moving announcement. In any case, the event serves as a reminder that the crypto world is full of surprises and that its participants must always be ready for the unexpected.
