Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Whale Moves $180M in BTC to Coinbase – Decrypt

An early Bitcoin miner has transferred 2,000 BTC to Coinbase, blockchain analytics reveals.

Transaction data show that the funds were sent in tranches of 50 BTC each on Saturday, and the coins hadn’t been moved in more than 15 years.

“Most addresses in this cluster appear to have been funded by Coinbase with 50 BTC each 15 years ago in 2010,” a spokesperson for onchain analytics platform Bubblemaps told Decrypt, with the “vast majority” of the funds ending up back on the crypto exchange.

The crypto stash dates back to the “Satoshi era,” referring to the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto, when miners received a reward of 50 BTC per block.

While this would have been worth a mere $3.50 back in July 2010, the cash value of this block reward has ballooned to $4.5 million at current market rates.

Overall, the 2,000 BTC is valued at over $182 million at the time of writing, in a powerful illustration of “diamond hands.”

Tracking whale movements

Movement in dormant Bitcoin addresses can spark alarm in the crypto market, fueling fears of aggressive sell-offs.

CryptoQuant’s head of research Julio Moreno, who highlighted the transactions in a tweet, said that “historically, Satoshi-era miners move their Bitcoin at key inflection points.”

He added that this was the biggest transfer of coins from this period since November 2024.

SynFutures CEO Rachel Lin told Decrypt that transfers to centralized exchanges historically signal “potential liquidity events, whether profit-taking, collateral deployment or positioning ahead of volatility.”

“That said, not every whale move equals an imminent sell-off,” she added. “Early holders are often highly strategic, using exchanges for hedging, OTC settlement, or structured trades rather than outright liquidation.”

Lin noted that how the market responds will have a key impact—as it could “raise short-term uncertainty, amplify volatility and shake out overleveraged traders in a market already sensitive to macro signals and ETF flows.”

The funds were held across 40 P2PK addresses—otherwise known as Pay-to-Public-Keys.

This was the original method for receiving Bitcoin when the blockchain first launched, with Satoshi Nakamoto using this method to send coins to fellow contributor Hal Finney.

Bitcoin whales reawaken

Addresses unexpectedly becoming active after years of dormancy are rare, but not unheard of.

Last September, a whale who had held onto 479 BTC for 12 years moved a cache of coins to new addresses.

They were among several early adopters who began to cash in on their holdings, with some converting their Bitcoin into Ethereum as the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency began to outperform.

Transfers to centralized exchanges can indicate that coins are about to be sold, but there appeared to be little panic in the crypto markets as of early Monday.

Bitcoin was flat on a 24-hour timeframe at $91,164, but down 1.7% compared with a week ago, according to CoinGecko data. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, users place a 73% chance on the cryptocurrency’s next move taking it to $100,000 rather than $69,000.