$8.7B Bitcoin Whale Wakes Up

Author

Alpha Team
July 08, 2025

$8.7B Bitcoin Whale Moves After 14 Years

Significant Bitcoin Transfer: On July 4, 2025, a substantial movement of over 80,000 BTC valued at $8.7 billion occurred after 14 years of dormancy. Two wallets, each containing 10,000 BTC, originally worth $7,800 in 2011, now stand at $1.1 billion, reflecting a remarkable 13,982,800% increase. Lookonchain identified six additional wallets, each holding 10,000 BTC, received on May 4, 2011, when BTC was priced at $3.37, all under the same entity. Protos reported a preceding 10,000 BCH test transaction 14 hours earlier, raising the possibility of a heist.

Potential Address Upgrade: Arkham suggests the transfer of 80,000 BTC may represent an address upgrade, transitioning from legacy “1-” to modern “bc1q-” SegWit formats to enhance security and reduce fees. The firm stated on X, “No indications this whale is selling,” indicating the funds remain in new non-exchange addresses across eight 10,000 BTC wallets. Protos noted the unusual pattern, while Ledger’s Charles Guillemet highlighted that OP_RETURN messages claiming legal ownership were sent to the wallets prior to the transfer, adding an intriguing layer to the 10,000 BCH test.

Ownership and Security Concerns: Coinbase’s Conor Grogan indicated that a 2011 miner, potentially holding 200,000 BTC now valued at $22 billion, could be the owner. Protos speculated that this might constitute the largest heist in history if the private keys were compromised. Grogan added on X, “Keys likely in wallet.dat file, insane security!” with possible owners including Roger Ver or ArtForz. Readers should track wallet activity closely for any additional movements or updates.

️ On today's Top Picks:

  1. 💸 PumpFun $PUMP token sale leaks on Gate before being deleted.
  2. ⁉️ Coinbase Wallet teases "New name coming soon. TBA."
  3. 🪂 Eclipse launches $ES airdrop eligibility & allocation checker.
  4. 💰 Kuru raises $11.6M in Series A funding led by Paradigm.

Read time: ⏰ 6 minutes


Crypto News


• ⭐️ Bitcoin $BTC OG holding ~$8.7B worth of BTC wakes up after 14+ years of dormancy; transfers ~$4.4B worth of BTC to different wallets.

• Vitalik Buterin & Toni Wahrstätter propose Ethereum $ETH gas limit cap of 16.77M per transaction; the limit can improve Ethereum's resilience against DoS attacks and improve overall stability.

• US SEC asks issuers to amend or refile their spot Solana $SOL ETF applications by end of July; potentially hints at early approvals.

• ⭐️ PumpFun $PUMP token sale page leaks on Gate before being deleted; token sale to potentially launch on multiple exchanges beginning on July 12th.

• Digital Asset Investment Products saw $1.04B of inflows last week; Bitcoin $BTC $790M inflows, Ethereum $ETH $226M inflows, Solana $SOL $21.6M inflows, Ripple $XRP $10.6M inflows.

Alpha


• ⭐️ Coinbase Wallet teases "New name coming soon. TBA" on X; to potentially launch on July 16th.

• Boundless launches the Boundless Manifesto; users can sign the manifesto with an Ethereum wallet; to launch Mainnet Beta soon.

• List of Upcoming TGEs, Listings, & Releases by ICO Analytics.

• ICYMI Zama launches Public Testnet & releases Litepaper; to launch $ZAMA TGE by end of 2025.

• ICYMI Crypto July Calendar by LayerGG.

Airdrops


• Weekly Airdrop Recap by Earndrop.

• ⭐️ Eclipse launches $ES airdrop eligibility & allocation checker; Eclipse users are potentially eligible.

• Sonic to launch $S season 1 airdrop claim randomly between July 15th & July 22nd; Sonic users are potentially eligible.

• WalletConnect launches $WCT airdrop for Phantom users; the top 5K wallets by recent USD swap volume on Solana DEXs via Phantom and the top 5K pSOL holders are eligible.

• ICYMI Weekly Airdrop Recap (June 28th) by Earndrop.

Finance News


• US President Trump sends tariff letters with various rates to Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Serbia, Indonesia, Bosnia, Tunisia, Japan, & South Korea; to go into effect on August 1st.

• US President Trump says "any country aligning with ... BRICS ... will be charged an additional 10% tariff"; adds "...no exceptions to this policy".

• Strategy $MSTR to raise $4.2B via ATM offering to buy more Bitcoin $BTC; currently holds 597,325 BTC worth ~$64B.

• Metaplanet $3350.T buys an additional 2,205 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$238.7M at ~$108,237 per BTC; now holds 15,555 BTC worth ~$1.7B.

• Semler Scientific buys an additional 187 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$20M at ~$106,906 per BTC; now holds 4,636 BTC worth ~$502M.

• Bit Digital $BTBT raises ~$172M to purchase more Ethereum $ETH; currently holds 100,603 ETH worth ~$255M.

• DeFi Dev Corp $DFDV buys an additional 17,760 Solana $SOL for ~$2.72M at ~$153.10 per SOL; now holds 640,585 SOL worth ~$95M.

• Nano Labs $NA buys 74,315 $BNB for ~$50M at ~$672 per BNB; now holds ~$160M worth of crypto.

• Amber International $AMBR raises $25.5M via private placement; to use proceeds to support its $100M crypto $BTC $ETH $SOL $BNB $XRP $SUI reserve strategy.

• Tether & Adecoagro $AGRO to explore a strategic collaboration focused on Bitcoin $BTC mining; Tether currently owns a ~70% stake in Adecoagro.

• CoreWeave $CRWV to acquire Core Scientific $CORZ in $9B all-stock deal; acquisition expected to close in Q4.

• Key Events This Week by The Kobeissi Letter.

Security and Exploits


• Jack, Twitter co-founder & Block $XYZ CEO, launches BitChat, a decentralized peer-to-peer messaging app.

• RevokeCash launches support for Katana.

Token Unlocks


• Immutable $IMX / ~$10M / July 11th
• Aptos $APT / ~$50M / July 12th
Sourced from Tokenomist


Funding


• Distinct Possibility Studios raises $30.5M in funding led by Bitkraft Ventures & Brevan Howard Digital.

• The Open Platform raises $28.5M in Series A funding led by Ribbit Capital.

• ⭐️ Kuru raises $11.6M in Series A funding led by Paradigm.

• Zypher Network raises $7M in funding led by UOB Venture Management & Signum Capital.

• olaxbt raises $3.38M in Seed funding led by Amber Group.

. . .

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. . .

That’s it for today’s edition! See you soon.

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