An unexpected move shook the financial world and the crypto universe: someone, completely anonymous, transferred more than $2.1 billion in Bitcoin after keeping it stored and untouched for more than 14 years.
And it was no small feat. These were two huge transactions, each worth 10,000 BTC (more than $1 billion per transaction) from wallets that had not been used since 2011, when each Bitcoin was worth less than a dollar. Yes, less than a dollar.
Why was it so important that these Bitcoins were moved?
To understand how big this was, you have to understand what Bitcoin is. It is a digital currency that operates on a network called blockchain, where everything is publicly recorded. The curious thing is that, although everyone can see the transactions, no one can know who is behind them. It's like seeing the movements of an account without knowing who it belongs to.
Now, this movement was detected by experts on the CryptoQuant platform, and what they found was impressive: two wallets that had not been touched for 14 years suddenly transferred 20,000 Bitcoins. At that time, those BTC were worth only about $15,000. Today they are worth more than $2.1 billion.
The most interesting thing is that these types of users are often what are known in the crypto world as “whales” (people (or entities) who have a huge amount of Bitcoin and who, just by moving their funds, can shake up the market).
However, for now, those Bitcoins have not been sent to exchanges, which indicates that there is probably no intention to sell them yet. So the market remains calm... for now.
Analyst Maartunn (@JA_Maartun) from CryptoQuant explained that this case is one of the longest periods of inactivity in Bitcoin ever seen. Obviously, it caught the attention of the entire crypto community, which closely monitors these types of movements in case they anticipate something bigger.
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Could this affect the price of Bitcoin?
One of the first questions that came up was: What if this person plans to sell all those Bitcoins? Because if someone puts more than $2 billion worth of BTC on the market at once, the price could fall rapidly simply because there is suddenly a lot of supply.
But for now, that doesn't seem to be the case. The Bitcoins were moved, yes, but only to two new wallets. They haven't reached any exchange platform (where they are sold), so there are no signs of an imminent sale.
Furthermore, this type of movement may also have another explanation: security. When someone stores their cryptos for many years, they often move them from one wallet to another from time to time to avoid risks such as hacking, loss of keys, or technical failures. It's like moving your money from a safe, just to be on the safe side.