The Mystery of the $8 Billion Ancient Bitcoin Whale

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over 80,000 Bitcoin, untouched since 2011 and now worth $8 billion, suddenly moved this holiday weekend, sparking wild theories—from secret whales to quantum hacks. NLW explores the intrigue, risks, and possibilities behind one of Bitcoin's largest-ever transactions, and the deeper questions it raises about Bitcoin privacy, security, and the mythos of crypto’s earliest adopters. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW Subscribe to the newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownBW

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.
0:09.3	It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.
0:18.4	What's going on, guys? It is Monday, July 7th, and today we're talking about the mystery of the ancient Bitcoin.
0:25.1	Before we get into that, however, if you're enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it,
0:28.5	give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation,
0:31.7	come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link of the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, welcome back from the long holiday weekend, at least for those of you in the
0:41.4	U.S. and over the weekend, we had a fun little mystery come about.
0:45.7	While most people were getting ready for 4th of July celebrations the following day,
0:50.0	Bitcoiners were watching the chain.
0:51.9	A huge quantity of ancient Bitcoin was on the move. Across a series
0:55.7	of transactions on Thursday night and into Friday morning, over 80,000 Bitcoin were moved from an
1:00.4	ancient wallet cluster. That is around 0.3% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. These addresses
1:06.1	have been dormant since 2011, so these Bitcoin hadn't been touched in 14 years. At the time, Bitcoin was priced
1:12.1	at around $6 a coin. So this represented around half a million dollars worth. Small by today's
1:17.5	standards, but an insane gamble based on how early things were. The coins were acquired in May
1:22.3	of 2011, a few months after the Silk Road launched, but before the Gawker article that made the
1:27.1	dark web market notorious. It was also just five months after Satoshi's last post, meaning that we are
1:32.7	firmly in the earliest era of Bitcoin here. Now, ancient wallets waking up isn't all that unusual,
1:38.7	but this is the single largest transaction of its type we've ever witnessed.
1:42.4	Coinbase director Connor Grogan traced the coins back to a single miner, who once held
1:46.3	200,000 Bitcoin in a single wallet, one of the largest wallets that has ever existed.
1:51.0	Security expert Taylor Monaghan noted the strange way the wallets were arranged.
	...

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