Dormant Bitcoin Whale Wakes up After 7 Years – What Are the BTC Whales Up To?

Key Insights

• Bitcoin wallet linked to Mt. Gox was reactivated and has performed its biggest transaction since August 2017.
• Ki Young Ju notes that a total of 10,000 BTC, worth about $167 million, has been on the move.
• One transaction containing 3,500 BTC was divided amongst several wallets.

Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, had a rough phase in November. BTC, as many know, is the leading cryptocurrency and has a certain influence over the prices and performance of several other cryptocurrencies on the market.

In the FTX crash and the subsequent FTX hack that happened in the earlier days of the month, Bitcoin was one of the cryptocurrencies that took beatings. As a result, the cryptocurrency crashed from $21,000 to a low around the $15,000 zone.

Naturally, this has affected the rest of the market and several other cryptocurrencies have struggled just like Bitcoin. 50% of all BTC addresses are currently in significant loss, and there appears to be no clear end in sight.

However, several new developments have surfaced between 1 November and the time of writing.

One of these developments is from the old Mt. Gox hack that happened in 2014.

Mt. Gox (an acronym for Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange) was a crypto exchange created by Jed McCaleb between 2010 and 2014.

At the time, Mt. Gox handled about 70 to 80% of Bitcoin transactions and suffered a fatal hack in February 2014 that led to the loss of 650,000 to 850,000 Bitcoin.

However, in recent news, about 10,000 Bitcoin connected to the Mt. Gox hack have begun to move again, and the crypto community is abuzz.

10,000 Mt. Gox Bitcoin Starts To Move Again

According to a tweet from the founder of CryptoQuant (the blockchain monitoring and crypto intelligence platform) Ki Young Ju: a Bitcoin wallet linked to Mt. Gox was reactivated and has performed its biggest transaction since August 2017.

Ki Young Ju notes that a total of 10,000 BTC, worth about $167 million, has been sent to two unknown receivers in separate transactions. One transaction containing 3,500 BTC was divided amongst several wallets, while the final 6,500 Bitcoins were transferred to a single address.

Ki Young Ju also mentioned that 65 BTC was sent to HitBTC, meaning that these coins sudden moving was not due to a government auction.

"Old #BTC is a bearish thing in most cases," Ki Young Ju tweeted. As a reason, he mentioned that Bitcoin was

1. Minted in a "lawless era."
2. Owned by people who couldn't use custodian services with KYC (Know Your Customer) information
3. And was distributed through multiple exchanges in thousands of small deposits (all of which do not require KYC information)

The CryptoQuant founder also called on HitBTC to suspend the involved account that received the 65 BTC for suspicious activity.

Ki Young Ju, under the replies to his own tweet, mentioned that the wallet's owners might be selling at a loss, but they are still 55x in profit. "They got these coins when the price was 297 dollars or so in January 2015," he said.

Bitcoin's price is around $16,500 now, meaning that the wallet's owner's PnL is still a whopping +5,594% after seven years.

50% Of Bitcoin Addresses in Loss

The blockchain analytics platform, IntoTheBlock has shown that about 50% of all Bitcoin addresses are currently at significant losses. According to the analytics platform, this is the first time that this is happening since the heat of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Into the Block notes that

1. Most addresses were at similar losses or (out-of-the-money) when previous bear markets ended.
2. Out-of-the-money addresses purchased Bitcoin, on average, at a greater price than the current market price of Bitcoin ($16,607), as defined by IntoTheBlock.
3. According to IntoTheBlock, 24.6 million addresses (51%) out of a total of 47.9 million are holding investments below the current Bitcoin price.
4. About 45% of the total have unrealized gains, while 4% of addresses are at break-even.
5. During the worst of the 2015 bear market, the percentage of out-of-the-money addresses increased to 62%.
6. At the same time, however, it is important to note that historical data does not guarantee future outcomes, and the effects of the FTX collapse may cause the market to suffer even more than anticipated.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Outlook

The Bitcoin market recovered slightly following the announcement that Coinbase had 2 million BTC in its reserves as of the end of Q3 2022. As a result, Bitcoin has recovered from the dip it was in earlier in the week.

BTC/USD rose to an intra-day high of $16,611.59 on Wednesday, after hitting a low of $15,820.29 on Tuesday. It currently shows neutral bullishness and has risen by 0.4%   over the last 24 hours of writing. The cryptocurrency also trades at $16,600 at the time of writing and appears healthy enough in terms of price action.

According to the charts, BTC's price is rising and appears to be moving away from the floor price of around $15,600. Overall, the bulls now appear to be aiming for a ceiling of $16,900, where the middle Bollinger band of the daily chart sits.

However, at the same time, Bitcoin appears to be moving up from its oversold conditions and now sits at an RSI value of 40.19. This indicates that the bulls are starting to fight back against the bears, and Bitcoin may indeed test and break the $16,900 – $17,200 zone to the upside.

Disclaimer: Voice of crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.