Early miner could be behind sudden $8.6B bitcoin move

The bitcoin (BTC) whale responsible for moving more than 80,000 BTC (worth over $8.6 billion) today may have mined the coins themselves way back in 2011, according to Coinbase’s Conor Grogan.

As reported by Lookonchain, the holder’s BTC lay dormant for 14 years, but all eight of their wallets, each containing 10,000 BTC, have now been emptied.

Grogan believes the mystery BTC holder is likely a miner from 2011, since they consolidated 180 mined reward blocks.

He does stress, however, that ownership of the BTC may have changed hands over the years, and also notes that they held 200,000 BTC at one point (worth $22 billion today).

Currently, all 8 wallets woke up after 14 years of dormancy and transferred out 80,009 $BTC($8.69B).https://t.co/5FjcAQxb89 pic.twitter.com/HuoQT5hjFF
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 4, 2025

BTC is worth $107,745 today but was valued at just $0.78 on April 3, 2011, when the whale first received its BTC. Their stash of 80,000 BTC would have been worth roughly $62,400 at the time, and has increased by almost 140,000% since then.

The funds have reportedly not moved to any crypto exchange addresses, and so it’s unclear if the holder plans to sell the BTC or not.

Others are also unsure why the whale would need to split up the BTC holdings into eight separate addresses. This is sometimes done to increase security and can help avoid the risk of losing all your holdings in a single hack targeting one wallet.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.