A crypto whale has moved 69,369 BTC (almost $1 billion) for the first time since 2015. This wallet moved the funds to an unknown wallet and without clear information on whether he could be cashing out the funds or just changing wallet. The information was published by Whale Alert on Twitter, a bot that shares information about large moves of virtual currencies. 

Bitcoin Whale Moves 69,369 BTC

A Bitcoin whale has moved 0.33% of the entire Bitcoin supply to an unknown wallet. This transfer was worth $955 at the time of sending the funds. As per the official transaction, the fees paid to move this large amount of BTC was 0.00087980 BTC, close to $12. 

This wallet has been before published on a popular hacking forum called RaidForums. Users can try to hack wallets that have a large number of coins and get rewarded if they are able to get access to them. Nevertheless, we cannot confirm nor deny this massive move of funds was due to a hacker that was able to get access to the wallet. 

This cryptocurrency wallet was considered one of the largest in the world in terms of cryptocurrencies held. It was the 5th largest holder of BTC in the world. Thus, this shows the holder was an important person that has been in the cryptocurrency market for a long period of time. It is worth pointing out that the wallet has also been associated with the Silk Road darknet. 

According to data provided by the crypto intelligence company Ciphertrace, the transaction was most likely to switch between address formats. The old wallet address was using the Legacy/p2PKH system while the new one is using the Bech32/p2WPKH format. 

As per the report released by Ciphertrace, the owner of these BTC held also Bitcoin SV (BSV) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) coins. The company confirmed the owner moved also these coins to new wallets. 

About the speculation of hackers having access to the wallet, Ciphertrace explained:

“While it is most probable that these transactions were made to stay up to date with the Bitcoin network, there is also some speculation that the wallet could have been cracked by hackers.” 

The company is now monitoring these addresses in order to check whether there are additional movements of funds from or to this BTC wallet. The Bitcoin Storm might come, and another 2017 bull run with it.