On the afternoon of July 14, 2025, at 16:17 UTC, a notable transaction took place on the Bitcoin network: 10,000 BTC (≈$1.2B) that had remained untouched for over 10 years were transferred.
The transaction originated from address bc1q84w6epn6uce9s85slt7q6emm3qfzz7ngq7ef6k and the funds were sent to bc1qmuxrzvnx34j8y6h9leg4zen5gnw7wmfmgp8v2p.
Movements of such extremely old UTXOs often raise concerns in the market, as they can suggest potential selling by long-term holders. However, further analysis reveals a different context.
These types of movements generally respond to three main scenarios:
1. UTXO consolidation: The owner reorganizes their funds, combining small outputs into a single address. This is common for wallet management or security improvement and doesn’t necessarily imply selling.
2. Custody or security upgrade: Funds may have been moved to a new wallet, using recent upgrades like Taproot, descriptor wallets, or Schnorr signatures, which improve privacy and efficiency. They may also have shifted to an institutional custody setup.
3. Potential sale preparation: Sometimes such moves precede a sale, especially if BTC reaches a CEX. No exchange inflows were observed here, so this is unlikely.
In this case, all three reasons may be valid. Although no CEX activity was seen, UTXO consolidation occurred, which lowers future transaction fees. This transaction used 16 inputs, showing prep for possible future use.
The same receiving wallet got another 10,009 BTC two hours later. Before both large transfers, two test transactions were sent: one of 0.00089 BTC (≈$100) and another of 0,000889 BTC and 1 BTC, to verify delivery.
These BTC likely came from early miners, who earned 50 BTC per block in Bitcoin’s early years. Volume and age suggest historic holdings from Bitcoin's origin era.
Signed by Carmelo Alemán, Verified On-Chain Analyst at CryptoQuant
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Written by Carmelo_Alemán
