Bitcoin (BTC) Whale Wallets Scare Crypto Twitter With Sudden Moves
Wallets containing large amounts of bitcoin (BTC), which have seen no activity for years, are suddenly showing signs of life, sparking conversations on Crypto Twitter about the possible reasons behind such moves.
Whale, a term used in crypto circles, refers to holders of large amounts of all tokens. Due to the size of their holdings, whales can influence the price or sentiment surrounding a token.
One such wallet, which was last active in 2012, moved over 400 bitcoin ($11 million) over the weekend, data show. The Bitcoin whale moved 360 bitcoin to one wallet, and 40 bitcoin to other wallets. The whale had bought around 900 bitcoins in 2012, held onto the asset since then and made a nearly 40,000% return on its original investment.
The move comes on the back of several other whales that have moved large amounts of bitcoin and ether (BTC) in recent weeks.
Another whale wallet moved around 279 bitcoin earlier in April after over ten years of inactivity. The whale received 1,128 bitcoins between 2012 and 2013 when the price fluctuated between $12 and $195 – with its holdings valued at $31 million at the time of writing.
Ether holders also move their tokens. Last week, a participant in the ether initial coin offering (ICO) moved 1 ether (ETH) to another wallet after eight years of inactivity. The wallet has over 2,356 Ether – purchased at 31 cents each in the ICO – worth over $4 million.
The identity of these whales is unknown, and none of them have communicated the reason behind their movements using on-chain messages.
The silence has fueled speculation for the movements of Crypto Twitter, with causes ranging from developers of the dark site Silk Road gaining access to its wallet to insiders with knowledge of moving tokens ahead of bad news. Some even speculate that their wallet passwords have been cracked.
“We now have far too many 10+ year wallets suddenly coming to life on multiple assets,” CEHV partner Adam Cochrane said on Twitter. “Unless these wallets are somehow related to Mt Gox cold storage, then an old wallet generator must have been cracked.”
Cochrane’s reasoning may not be entirely inappropriate, as old wallets have repeatedly been the target of hackers and cyber thieves.
Earlier this month, Taylor Monahan, founder of Ethereum service provider MyCrypto, flagged a massive “pocket emptying operation” that appeared to affect whales and early holders of ether.
Mohanan estimates that over 5,000 Ether were drained from such wallets in the sophisticated attack. “My best guess is that someone acquired a fat cache of data from 1 plus years ago and is methodically siphoning the keys while parsing them from the vault,” she tweeted at the time.
Such security concerns may have caused the recent movement of bitcoin into whale wallets. But for now, everyone is just guessing.
