On Tuesday, October 18, researchers from the crypto analysis platform Cryptoquant identified an outflow of 48,000 bitcoin coming from the trading platform Coinbase Pro. According to the researcher’s summary of the situation, a large portion of the funds were old coins.
Whales Transfer 48,000 Bitcoins Amidst Coiled Market
While Bitcoin (BTC) is trading under the $20K area and trading sideways, observers are seeing many older coins moving on the chain. Onchain movement comes at a time when market volatility is expected. For example, the latest Glassnode Insights report called “A Coiled Spring” expects some volatility in the bitcoin price in the near future.
“The bitcoin market is primed for volatility, with both realized and options implied volatility falling to historical lows,” Glassnode wrote on October 17. “Futures open interest has hit new all-time-highs, despite liquidations being at all-time-lows. Volatility is likely on the horizon, and Bitcoin prices rarely sit still for long.”
The next day, researchers from crypto analysis platform Cryptoquant tweeted That 48,000 inactive bitcoins went on chain on Tuesday. “Inactive Bitcoin Gone Out of Coinbase Pro,” Cryptoquant said on Twitter. “48K BTC Outflow Is Coming From Coinbase Pro and Has a Dollar Value [$940 million],
Cryptoquant said that a “big portion” of the onchain spending stemmed from batches of really old bitcoins, at least three to five years in age. The researchers estimate roughly 32,000 BTC of the 48K were between three to five years old. “Further investigation is needed to conclude whether it’s an exchange in-house flow, sent to a new wallet, or just a clean outflow,” Cryptoquant detailed on Tuesday.
In an update following the initial post, Cryptoquant reported that 8,000 BTC had been deposited on Coinbase shortly after. “Transactions were partially split into batches of 122 BTC. We have seen this many times during the bull run of 2021, right? Important institutions,” said Cryptoquant.
11-Year-Old ‘Sleeping Bitcoins’ Wake After Years of Slumber
In addition to the 48,000 coins moving onchain with a great majority being dormant bitcoins, a few addresses from 2011 have sent a few batches of so-called ‘sleeping bitcoins’ this month. Btcparser.com caught sleeping bitcoins moving from an address created on May 14, 2011, when they were transferred on October 10, 2022, at block height 758,046.
On the same day, an inactive address created on 24 October 2011 transferred 40 BTC. Seven days later, a batch of 10.29 sleeping bitcoins was transferred from an address created on September 20, 2011, for the first time in 11 years.
