Dormant Bitcoin whale moves $188M after seven years

A Bitcoin wallet identified as “356my” transferred 2,931 BTC, about $188 million at current prices, to the address “bc1qn” on Sunday. Blockchain data provider Arkham recorded the transaction, and it was the wallet’s first on-chain activity in seven years.

The wallet had last been active when Bitcoin traded near $6,500. Bitcoin is trading near $64,000, and analytics firm Onchain Lens estimates the holder faces roughly a tenfold gain compared with the original acquisition price.

Platforms that track on-chain flows classify large transfers as whale transfers. Coinglass defines whale transfers with a $10 million minimum. Data from on-chain trackers show transfers of at least $10 million account for a large share of Bitcoin deposited to exchanges so far this year.

CryptoQuant’s metric that compares the largest individual transfers to total exchange inflows stood at 0.99 at the time of the Arkham report. That ratio indicates about 99% of BTC moved to exchanges in the measured period came from the ten largest deposits. CryptoQuant characterizes a high exchange ratio as “historically a bearish signal.”

U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds had differing flows in recent weeks. Farside Investors data show roughly $197 million in net inflows in the week before Friday and $4.51 billion in net outflows for June, the largest monthly outflow recorded for the ETFs.

The transferred coins are notable for their size and the long dormancy of the wallet. On-chain analysts and trading desks monitor movements from long-dormant addresses and large transfers to known exchange addresses for any further transactions or withdrawals that could affect available supply on exchanges. Further on-chain activity involving the recipient address or related exchange movements will be tracked by analytics firms.