On November 1, at block height 707,639, a blockchain parser caught two bitcoin whale transfers that moved approximately 19,876 bitcoin worth $1.2 billion in the mix of 2,819 transactions. Interestingly, the owner used a similar splitting mechanism that old-school mining whale blockchain analyzers captured, spending chains of 20 block rewards throughout 2020 and 2021.
Bitcoin Whale Watching
Bitcoin whales are mysterious animals because in a blockchain world of pseudonymity we only see them when they move. Last year and this year as well, Bitcoin.com News hunted down a whale-specific entity that spent thousands of mined bitcoins in 2010.
Every single time the whale spent the decade-old bitcoin that sat idle the whole time, the entity spent exactly 20 block rewards or 1,000 BTC. After the transfer, the wallets containing 1000 BTC dispersed the funds into smaller wallets.
According to the creator of btcparser.com, the close to 20K BTC transferred at block height 707,639 on November 1 shared similar splitting mechanics with the “20×50 awakenings.” The owner of the blockchain analyzer would guess that the entity doing the two transactions could be the same person or the same organization.
The special transactions stemming from block height 707,639 derived from the bitcoin addresses “15kEr” and “1PfaY.” The 15kEr address transferred 9,900.87 BTC, while 1PfaY spent 9,975.31 BTC.
The two transactions were filtered out of 2,819 BTC transfers with 6,406 entries recorded in block 707,639. The output total in that block was 9,587 with 78,704.53 BTC dispersed. The two transactions stemming from 15kEr and 1PfaY, represented more than 25% of the BTC processed in block 707,639.
After the funds were sent, almost 20,000 BTC was split into 200 wallets of 100 BTC each. Then the bitcoin whale’s funds were split again into much smaller wallets until they finally consolidated into different amounts.
Both transactions used moderate privacy tactics – 50 Bitcoin Block Reward from 2011 past 59 blocks later
Data from blockchair.com’s Privacy-o-meter for Bitcoin Transactions tool shows that the wallet that sent the 9,975.31 BTC scored 60 or “moderate.” This is because matched addresses were identified and blockchair.com’s tool notes that “matching significantly reduces the anonymity of addresses.” The 9,900.87 BTC spend suffers from the same tracking vulnerabilities as matched addresses were also identified.
Along with the transfer of nearly 20,000 BTC in two separate transactions, 59 blocks later, 50 dormant bitcoins that had been inactive since April 28, 2011, were transferred to a block height of 707,698. The 50 BTC sat idle for over ten years since the day they were mined and when they were transferred, the exchange rate for the block reward of 50 BTC was just over $3 million.
Blockchair.com’s privacy tool indicates that the transaction was rated 0 or “critical.” A critical score means that the tool “identified issues [that] significantly endanger the privacy of the parties involved.”
