A Bitcoin whale came back to life on Sunday, moving coins worth $40 billion to a new address after more than a decade of inactivity.
The transfer took place around 7:16 p.m. UTC, according to blockchain tracking service Whale Alert. The coins have been moved from the address “1KAA8GGhVjjUjVTz1HKAjCyGNzAKQd882j” to “bc1qm6m6d33d02edr0k8yj9jgt027zl6dvx6thjrxy”.
The wallet has been inactive since November 2013 when BTC was initially acquired and then kept intact for over a decade.
The reason for this latest transfer remains unclear. Large holders often move coins between wallets for address management or security purposes, although this activity can also precede sales or transfers to exchanges. In this case, the destination address does not appear to be linked to a known exchange wallet.
Dormant Bitcoin wallets have increasingly resurfaced since BTC first broke the $100,000 mark in late 2024. Several early investors and miners have moved long-held coins over the past year, with some finally taking profits after Bitcoin’s massive rally.
The trend was most intense in July last year, when blockchain analytics firms reported eight Satoshi-era wallets, each holding 10,000 BTC, moving their coins for the first time in 14 years. These transfers took place while bitcoin was trading above $100,000 and near all-time highs.
At the time of writing, bitcoin changed hands at nearly $80,700, down more than 1% since midnight UTC, according to market data from CoinDesk.
