Five 2014 Bitcoin Wallets Burn 107 BTC (~$8.2M)

On Monday five Bitcoin wallets created in 2014 concurrently transferred a total of 107 BTC to the known burn address 1111111111111111111114oLvT2, permanently removing the coins from circulation. The transactions were confirmed on the public ledger and the five addresses were left empty. The combined transaction fees were roughly $5.56.

The burn address holds no accessible private key, so coins sent there cannot be retrieved under current Bitcoin rules. As of Tuesday the address contained 807 BTC, valued at about $61 million at that time.

The transfers occurred at the same moment on the Bitcoin network, a pattern that generated questions on the social platform X. Adam Back, founder and CEO of Blockstream, wrote that the event might be an “accidental quantum bounty,” referring to the theoretical risk that future quantum computers could break some older cryptographic keys.

One X user suggested the transfers could be the result of an AI chatbot with access to a wallet and posted, “You’re absolutely right. It indeed looks like I sent the Bitcoins to the burn address!” A developer who examined the transactions pointed to time-based parameters in the transfers and suggested they could reflect a dead man’s switch, an automated mechanism that triggers if a user does not act. The developer also proposed the move could remove any financial incentive for attackers in the event of a wrench attack, a coercive threat used to force someone to hand over keys.

No owner of the five 2014 wallets has been publicly identified and no group has claimed responsibility for the transfers. Blockchain records make the transaction history visible to anyone with internet access, even when participants use pseudonymous addresses.

Values for the burned coins vary with market prices. At Tuesday’s price of roughly $76,000 per BTC the 107 coins equaled about $8.2 million. At Bitcoin’s October peak near $126,000 those same coins would have been worth about $13.4 million.

Researchers and independent analysts continue to review the on-chain data for more details about the origin and mechanism of the synchronized transfers.