8 million BTC whales awakened after 14 years of slumber, who are they? Will they sell?
Is it "Roast Cat," Roger Ver, or earlier miners?*Author: Asher, *Odaily Planet Daily**
After 14 years of silence, 80,000 BTC worth $8.69 billion has been transferred
On-chain data monitoring shows that since noon yesterday, the address of a long-dormant BTC ancient whale that has been inactive for 14 years has become active again, with its associated 8 wallet addresses being gradually activated. These 8 addresses can be divided into two batches: 2 addresses received 20,000 BTC on April 2, 2011, when the price of Bitcoin was only about $0.78; the remaining 6 addresses received 60,009 BTC on May 4, 2011, when the price of Bitcoin was $3.37.
As of now, all 80,009 BTC held by these 8 addresses have been transferred to 8 new addresses, each now holding about 10,000 BTC. Based on the current market price, the total value of this batch of assets is approximately $8.69 billion, with the specific receiving addresses as follows:
1GcCK347TMbzHrRpDoVvJdR6eyECyqHCiU
bc1qmnjn0l0kdf3m3d8khc6cukj8deakg8m588z24g
bc1qymu2qf0d23qg38p9w7yxxt4yqjjg47rytxujl6
bc1qnzy2rr7g3688x62f8vrhgeclvtcs5hr50wzu0w
bc1q2lkyqvqqwus9pl96krgtk4rh0fqu8gtmpuwgmc
bc1qhtawge4km6juhlkrnvt7qjahhsc96qdlgf3c8t
bc1q84w6epn6uce9s85slt7q6emm3qfzz7ngq7ef6k
bc1qwq5geath93h0lnfsrmnwnfuck2f9ypv4ewyl4j
These BTC have not yet been transferred to any exchange, but they have already stirred market nerves------crypto holders around the world are holding their breath, watching the next move of this "ancient capital."
How much potential selling pressure is there?
The market is paying such close attention to this ancient whale's next move, mainly because the 80,000 Bitcoins it holds is a massive amount, accounting for about 13.4% of MicroStrategy's total holdings and 6.35% of the known holdings of Satoshi Nakamoto. The cost price of this batch of BTC ranges from $0.78 to $3.37, achieving an astonishing profit of over 100,000 times. Based on the current price, the total value of these Bitcoins is approximately $8.69 billion, far exceeding Binance's spot trading volume in the last 24 hours (only about $1 billion).
Moreover, from other market data, the total amount of Bitcoin purchased by publicly listed companies in the second quarter of 2025 is about 131,000 BTC, while Bitcoin ETFs net bought about 111,000 BTC during the same period, and last week's daily net inflow was only a little over 2,000 BTC. It can be seen that once this ancient whale starts to sell in batches, the scale of selling pressure it releases will far exceed any recent institutional buying and selling activities, and the impact on the market should not be underestimated.
Whether to sell depends on who this ancient whale really is
Speculation about the true identity of this ancient whale has sparked guesses in the community, with various opinions.
Possibly an early miner, but identity cannot be confirmed
Conor Grogan, a supervisor at Coinbase, stated on the X platform that this BTC ancient whale seems to be a single miner from 2011. This miner consolidated 180 mining reward blocks and had a wallet address containing 200,000 Bitcoins in 2011, which, based on current value, amounts to about $22 billion, making it one of the top five Bitcoin wallets in history.
CryptoQuant analyst Julio Moreno also believes this ancient whale is an early miner, as these transactions can be traced back to early block rewards and show integration of different block rewards. Yesterday's transfer appears to be merging multiple smaller UTXOs with a larger UTXO (10,000 BTC).
"The first person in the Chinese crypto circle" Fried Cat
One speculation in the Chinese community points to the legendary figure in the crypto circle, "Fried Cat," whose real name is Jiang Xinyu, from Shaoyang, Hunan. A child prodigy, he entered the Youth Class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 15 and later studied at Yale. He came into contact with Bitcoin in 2011 and initiated crowdfunding under the name "friedcat" in 2012, successfully founding ASICMiner, becoming one of the earliest entrepreneurs to develop Bitcoin-specific mining machines. His mining machines once accounted for 42% of the global hash rate, and his company was once very successful, being hailed as a "dominant force in the mining circle."
However, Fried Cat mysteriously disappeared at the end of 2014, and there has been no public news or clues since. His legendary experience and sudden disappearance have led many to suspect whether this batch of Bitcoins is related to him. However, feedback indicates that Fried Cat only started making mining machines in 2012, which does not match the creation time of the activated wallets. Additionally, the activity of his public addresses only began in 2013 (address tracking information: https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/address/1BnkEt2ceoVhnQVrqeAzigcroQ6MVyxFey).
Fried Cat's public address transaction information
Early Bitcoin evangelist Roger Ver
In various English-speaking communities, there is a general speculation that this ancient whale is early Bitcoin evangelist Roger Ver, nicknamed "Bitcoin Jesus."
The English community generally speculates that this ancient whale is Roger Ver
Roger Ver is one of the most fervent early evangelists of Bitcoin, having started investing in Bitcoin in 2011 and fully supporting the MT.GOX exchange during its crisis, helping it through technical difficulties. His company, Memorydealers, was one of the first to accept Bitcoin payments and even placed Bitcoin advertisements in Silicon Valley; he later launched bitcoinstore.com, enabling hundreds of thousands of products to support BTC purchases.
Starting in 2012, Roger Ver successively invested in several startup projects including BitPay, Coinbase, Ripple, and Blockchain.info, almost funding the entire first generation of Bitcoin startups. His evangelistic spirit and investment actions laid the early foundation for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Between faith and realization, this "ancient bomb" remains unresolved
The core of this storm lies in both "who is it" and "what will they do." Regardless of whether the true identity of this ancient whale is ultimately revealed, one thing is undeniable------once they start selling, the selling pressure released by these Bitcoins that have been dormant for 14 years will undoubtedly exceed what the bull market can bear.
While we cannot know what has kept them holding this asset for so long, becoming a true BTC "diamond hand," even the most devout Bitcoin believers may waver in the face of over 100,000 times of paper profit. The current 80,000 BTC is like a "black swan" bomb that could explode the market at any time, slowing down the pace of the bull market.
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