A giant Bitcoin (BTC) whale just emptied one of the richest crypto wallets in existence.
The unknown whale transferred a total of 15,022 BTC worth $166,137,553.10 to three separate wallets for a fee of just 91 cents.
Most of the BTC – 14,442 BTC worth more than $156 million – was transferred to a single wallet.
The sending address was the 45th richest on the Bitcoin ledger, according to the ledger analysis platform BitInfoCharts.
The Bitcoin in question could be owned by an exchange, custody provider, or an institution. However, none of the addresses involved are known to be tied to any companies in the cryptocurrency industry.
The BTC whale could also be an early investor who is trading BTC over-the-counter or shifting assets to new addresses for security and maintenance purposes.
The mysterious Bitcoin holder isn’t the only whale moving large amounts of crypto. Whale Alert tracked 15 Bitcoin transfers of at least 1,000 BTC on Monday.
Five of those transfers appear to be tied to a 2016 hack of the crypto exchange Bitfinex. The cyber thieves involved in the hack moved about 2,500 BTC worth more than $27 million in nine separate transactions.
Featured Image: Shutterstock/Maria T Hoffman