A Bitcoin wallet that has held 4,581.94 BTC since March 2020 sent its entire balance to five new addresses on Oct. 12. The transfer moved about $377 million, and none of the receiving addresses has spent anything yet.
A Bitcoin wallet untouched since March 2020 moved its entire 4,581.94 BTC balance to five new addresses on Oct. 12, a transfer worth about $377 million in a single transaction. The move confirmed in block 971,126 at about 18:37 UTC, with Bitcoin trading around $82,350.
Four of the receiving addresses got exactly 1,000 BTC each, and the fifth received 581.94 BTC. The transaction paid a fee of 732 satoshis, or about 60 cents. As of block 971,279 on Oct. 13, none of the five addresses has spent anything, and it is unclear who controls the wallet or where the coins are going.
A wallet that sat through several market shocks
The wallet received its coins on March 3, 2020, when Bitcoin traded at roughly $8,830. The 4,581.95 BTC that landed there was worth about $40.5 million at the time.
The stash fell to about $17.6 million during the COVID-19 crisis. It later dropped from about $291 million at its April 2021 peak to $131 million by June, after Tesla suspended Bitcoin payments and China cracked down on mining.
Trump's tariff shock hit more recently. Bitcoin has since fallen 54% from a record $124,728 to $57,735 before recovering, and the wallet's value dropped from $571.5 million to about $265 million during that dip.
Dust deposits and an address poisoning attempt
The address also collected dust, meaning transfers of a few hundred to a few thousand sats. Blockchain data shows 22 such deposits between August 2020 and May 2026, ranging from 546 to 6,953 sats.
One deposit matches the pattern of address poisoning, in which an attacker generates an address that copies the first and last characters of a real one. On Jan. 28, 2025, an address sent the wallet 600 sats and shares the first three and last four characters with the whale's address. The whale has not fallen for it.
Why large holders move coins
Large holders of Bitcoin, known as whales, move their coins for different reasons, including privacy and safety. Analysts and traders fear that moves like that precede selling as holders feel tempted to realize significant gains.
Dormant wallets have moved before. In July 2025, an entity moved 80,000 BTC that had sat for 14 years, worth $8.6 billion.
Source: Decrypt
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