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Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Whale Moves Final $4.8B to Galaxy Digital, Likely Prepping Sale
The latest tranche brings Galaxy’s wallet balance to 40,288 BTC, with no outbound activity recorded since the final whale transfer.
Updated Jul 18, 2025, 2:31 p.m. Published Jul 18, 2025, 10:29 a.m.
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What to know:
- A dormant bitcoin (BTC) address linked to an early whale has moved its entire 80,000 BTC to trading desks, with the final 40,191 BTC sent to Galaxy Digital, suggesting a potential sale.
- The transfers, totaling 15 transactions, were consolidated from four wallets into a Galaxy-labeled address, raising market speculation of an impending sale.
- The whale, inactive since 2011, began moving bitcoin on July 4, with Galaxy Digital now routing coins to various exchanges, indicating possible offloading.
The dormant bitcoin address tied to one of the network’s earliest whales has now moved its entire 80,000 BTC stash to trading desks, with the final 40,191 BTC (worth $4.8 billion) sent to Galaxy Digital on Friday — signaling a likely upcoming sale.
Sending to exchanges or trading desks does not confirm a sale of crypto to stablecoins or other tokens, but large amounts of crypto are typically held in hard wallets instead of exchanges — which gives the market a reason to believe otherwise.
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Blockchain data from Arkham Intelligence indicates that the coins were transferred across 15 transactions to a Galaxy-labeled address starting at 5:41 p.m. ET Thursday, consolidating from four prior wallets into a single holding address prior to the transfer.
The OG whale, who first acquired their bitcoin over 14 years ago, began reactivating on July 4, sending eight batches of 10,000 BTC to new addresses in their first movement since April 2011.
On Tuesday, they moved 40,010 BTC to Galaxy Digital, which has since begun routing coins to Coinbase, Gemini, Bitstamp, and several unlabeled addresses, indicating potential offloading via OTC desks.
The latest tranche brings Galaxy’s wallet balance to 40,288 BTC, with no outbound activity recorded since the final whale transfer.
The move comes as BTC trades just above $118,000 hovering near its recently set all-time high.
Read more: Bitcoin Devs Float Proposal to Freeze Quantum-Vulnerable Addresses — Even Satoshi Nakamoto’s
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