Bitcoin Whale Suddenly Moves 3.7k BTC Dormant Since 10 Years Ago
On-chain data shows that a Bitcoin whale has moved a 3.7,000 BTC stack that had previously been sitting still since 10 years ago.
Bitcoin Whale suddenly transfers coins that have been sitting unused since 2012
As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, these coins moved by the OG whale had been sitting still since the crypto price was only $10.
The relevant indicator here is “Spent Output Age Bands” (SOAB), which tells us which group in the Bitcoin market is moving how many coins.
Coins are deposited into “age groups” or groups based on how long they have been dormant in a single wallet. For example, the 6m-12m age group includes all coins that have been idle since between 6 and 12 months ago.
When some of these coins from this group eventually move to another address, the movement will appear as a peak in the SOAB graph for this age range.
Now, here’s a chart showing the trend in Bitcoin SOAB specifically for the 7y-10y and 10y+ cohorts over the past year:
The value of the metric seems to have been quite high in recent days | Source: CryptoQuant
As you can see in the graph above, the Bitcoin Spent Output value for the 10+ age group has increased in recent days. In total, the increase amounted to around 3.7k BTC that was shifted on-chain
This means that a large number of coins that have previously been idle for ten years or more have finally been moved.
Generally, such old supplies traveling on the blockchain are a bearish signal for the price of the crypto, as it suggests that some resolute whales have dumped their holdings.
From the chart, this trend is visible, where huge increases in the spending value for older age groups (more specifically in this period, the 7-10-year-old cohort) cause the price to decrease.
However, the analyst comments that whales usually sell when the price observes an increase. In the current case, the increase in the calculation occurred after the price had already fallen.
“These coins have gone through multiple bear/bull markets, halvings, Mt.Gox, Blocksize wars, BTC Forks, COVID-20 capitulation,” notes the quant.
For the whale to sell now at all times after going through these events is puzzling. “Is the outlook less bright than all the major Bitcoin events that I described above?” wonders the analyst.
It is possible that this last move was not intended to dump after all, and was a move made for another purpose, such as exchanging wallets.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price is hovering around $16.5k, down 20% in the last week.
Looks like BTC is trading sideways around $16.5k | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com
