Dormant bitcoin whale transfers $60 million after nine years

A Bitcoin whale address that has been dormant for over nine years transferred 2,071.5 BTC ($60.7 million) out today.

The newly awoken address in question received its 6,071.5 bitcoins on Dec. 19, 2013 — when the price of one bitcoin was just $663 — noted on-chain analyst Lookonchain.

While the reason for the move is unknown, some speculate that many long-time crypto users are moving old funds to new wallets amid a significant (and mysterious) wallet-draining operation seemingly targeting old wallets.

"This is NOT a low-brow phishing site or a random scammer," a Twitter account known as Tay explained in a thread on the exploit. "It has NOT rekt a single noob. It ONLY rekts OGs."

Though the source of the exploit remains unknown, Tay identified commonalities — such as compromised keys created between 2014 and 2022 and the targets being "more crypto-native than most."

The bitcoin price has dropped by nearly 4% over the past 24 hours. The market-leading cryptocurrency is trading just below $29,000 as of press time.

Update: This story has been updated to add comments from Tay.