speaks

A miner who was active in the early days of crypto has moved over $181 million worth of Bitcoin.

The miner was active in the “Satoshi era,” Julio Moreno of the blockchain analysis provider CryptoQuant wrote on X. Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin. Nakamoto authored the Bitcoin white paper in 2008 and launched the Bitcoin network the following year – before disappearing without a trace in 2010.

“[This is] the first time this has happened since November 2024, when Bitcoin was at around $91,000,” Moreno said. “Historically, Satoshi-era miners move their Bitcoin at key inflection points.”

The move comes a month after two so-called Bitcoin whales who had not touched their wallets since 2011 and 2012 moved their entire balances to unknown wallets.

Whales make moves

The crypto transaction monitoring platform Whale Alert noted on December 5 that one of the wallets had sat dormant for over 13 years. The other had been inactive for 14 years.

The latest transaction has generated much speculation online, with some X users commenting that Bitcoin whales tend to sell their coins when they think markets are rallying.

Sani, the founder of the Bitcoin transaction analysis site TimechainIndex, took to X to post blockchain data showing that a miner with funds in 40 Pay-to-Public-Key wallets had sent $181 million worth of Bitcoin to Coinbase crypto exchange wallets.

Pay-to-Public-Key wallets were popular in the early days of Bitcoin, but have since become largely obsolete, with modern users favoring more private alternatives.

“A miner just sold 2,000 Bitcoin from block rewards dormant since 2010,” Sani wrote.

Bullish predictions

Bitcoin prices have held steady just above $90,000 for most of the weekend, despite bullish predictions from the investment firm heavyweight VanEck.

VanEck last week said Bitcoin prices could reach the $2.9 million mark by 2050.

The company said big business and government adoption would likely spur Bitcoin growth in the years ahead.

It also outlined a “bull case scenario” that could see Bitcoin prices rise to a whopping $53.4 million.

“In a hyper-Bitcoinisation scenario where Bitcoin captures 20% of international trade and 10% of domestic GDP, the implied value per coin could reach $53.4 million,” wrote researchers Matthew Sigel and Patrick Bush.

Sigel and Bush explained that this scenario “requires Bitcoin to achieve parity with or surpass gold as a primary global reserve asset, constituting nearly 30% of world financial assets.”

In November, Galaxy Digital said Bitcoin was maturing and warned that the days of traders making “1,000x, 100x, or even possibly 10x gains” were over.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.