Bitcoin (BTC) historically remains one of the highest-yielding asset classes, but the firstborn crypto appears to be underperforming lately. Amidst this market turbulence, long-term holders seem to be moving their dormant BTC to exchanges. Most recently, CryptoQuant discovered the reawakening of 15K BTC that had been dormant for eight years.
Whales moved 15K BTC in three days
Ki Young Ju, CEO of analytics platform CryptoQuant, shared the development on Twitter. “8-year-old 15k #Bitcoin moved across ten days,” he said, sharing a CryptoQuant chart to illustrate the data. According to Ki, some of these bitcoins were moved to Kraken.
The movement of dormant BTC to exchanges is often welcomed with dread by the crypto community, especially if the bitcoins are massive enough to impact market conditions significantly. This dread is the general idea that whales send their assets to exchanges to sell them off.
Per data from the CryptoQuant chart, the whale moved the BTC within ten days in an uneven fashion. August 28, 29, and September 4 appear to have seen the largest moved coins. 5,019 and 5,023 bitcoins were respectively moved on August 28 and 29 alone. On September 4, they moved another set of 5,004 BTC. Some of these assets went to Kraken.
More dumps at this stage could further contribute to Bitcoin’s free fall
The discovery has spared mixed reactions within the crypto community. Some proponents have taken to mocking the individual(s) involved for seeking to sell at the “bottom.” Notwithstanding, others are looking at the possibility that they could be looking to engage in some high-leveraged trades.
The atmosphere is already seeing a lot of tension from the imminent BTC disbursement from Mt. Gox. Considering the current abysmal market conditions, most analysts have warned that a massive BTC dump could induce massive bearishness at an unprecedented level.
Before now, CryptoQuant researchers discovered whale addresses that had moved BTC dormant for 7+ years. The coins were moved in mid-August when BTC was still trading above $23.7K. Investigation from CryptoQuant found that the whales could be early adopters, or the coins could be coming from the now-defunct Cryptsy exchange before its back. Cryptsy suffered a hack in 2014.
BTC has broken below $20k just days after its surge above the $20k support. The asset has declined over 7% in the past week. As BTC trades at $19k, more bearish sentiment and massive dumps could further contribute to the asset’s free fall to lower lows.
Additionally, the CryptoQuant Exchange Reserve metric is not looking very good, showing a rapid surge in exchange reserves, indicating higher sell pressure. BTC trades at $19,816 at the time of reporting.
