The crypto transfer tracker Whale Alert just triggered a burst of speculation after reporting a large Bitcoin (BTC) transfer from a wallet that has been inactive for more than 11 years.
The BTC in question was mined back on February 9th, 2009 and remained dormant until today, when it was suddenly sent to two addresses in a single transaction.
??? 40 #BTC (391,055 USD) transferred from possible #Satoshi owned wallet (dormant since 2009) to unknown wallet
?? The coins in this transaction were mined in the first month of Bitcoin's existence.
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) May 20, 2020
Analyst Joseph Young says he believes the person or group behind the transfer likely had close ties to Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin.
“That’s just one month after [the] first bitcoin block was mined. There’s not a lot of people who can do this, perhaps close associates of Satoshi. My question is why, not who, is sending 50 BTC for the first time in more than 10 years.”
Luke Martin of Venture Coinist says he believes the movement is the reason for a sudden drop in the price of Bitcoin, with traders concerned that large amounts of BTC mined in the early days of the ledger could now be up for sale.
BTC is down 2.23% at time of publishing at $9,467, according to CoinMarketCap.
Some $BTC from 2009 just moved and it didn't take long to spook the market.
h/t @glassnode pic.twitter.com/Y1sFLswmSY
— Luke Martin (@VentureCoinist) May 20, 2020
Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who recently denied claims that he is Satoshi, says crypto traders should relax. He believes the owner of the wallet is likely an anonymous, early miner.
He says attempts to link the BTC to a specific miner are likely futile.
“People need to chill. If Satoshi was selling coins, surely he would sell his most recently mined, and so most anonymous first.
Plus this patoshi research is pretty much guessing, probably he has less coins than people think, and you’ll be doxing random early miners wrongly next.”
When the trove of Bitcoin was first mined, it was essentially worth next to nothing. Laszlo Hanyecz famously paid 10,000 BTC to buy two pizzas on May 22nd of 2010, and CoinMarketCap’s historical price data for the leading cryptocurrency doesn’t begin until April 29th of 2013, with BTC valued at $142.90.
