An old Bitcoin wallet that had not been used in more than four years suddenly sent about $250 million to an unidentified Bitcoin address. Currently, the address that was paid contains roughly $500 million in Bitcoin.
At the height of Bitcoin's value, the dormant whale's wallet was worth more than $1 billion. The portfolio of the whale saw a sizable percentage of its worth decline as market conditions deteriorated. Only $250 million of what had been a $1 billion wallet remained at the time of the transaction.
An address “1KUr81” that has been dormant for 3.5 years transferred all 15,000 BTC ($252.5M) out to address “1LGAVQ” today.
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 6, 2023
Now address “1LGAVQ” holds 26,056 $BTC($439.2M).https://t.co/rK2AV0Hs1C pic.twitter.com/adqtgYUSd9
The whale bought the first 15,000 BTC in 2019, and it has just just been transferred to another wallet. Unfortunately, a number of blockchain explorers don't show any information on the whale, making it impossible to tell whether it belongs to an exchange or an OTC trading desk.
The wallet's activity, however, suggests that it is either being held by a large retail investor who has been hoarding Bitcoin on various wallets or by a blockchain-based company in need of immediate cash. The second instance, however, would have had at least one wallet in the transaction chain connected to a particular business discovered by explorers.
There are currently $430 million in the wallet that got the money, and it doesn't appear that it's connected to any bitcoin exchange or business that would use those funds for liquidity.
Earlier, a few additional wallets that had lain idle for years started to send money. This could be due to a market impasse, which typically comes before a period of extreme volatility, and whales may be prepared to temporarily withdraw in order to save their cash.
