On November 14 a legendary figure in the crypto world, known as the phantom whale, made headlines by moving 2,000 BTC, worth about $175.61 million, dating back to 2010.
The silent giant strikes again
Earlier this month some dormant Bitcoin wallets are curbing up excitement, but nothing prepared us for this mega whale’s latest move.
At block height 870,329, this figure transferred 40 block rewards from 2010, and let’s just say it got everyone talking!
What makes this transfer particularly interesting is not just its size but its age. These coins have been untouched since they were mined over a decade ago.
The transaction was first spotted by btcparser.com, which revealed that all 40 wallets involved were unique Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash, or P2PKH addresses.
They pooled the funds into a single Pay-to-Script-Hash address, sticking to the whale’s usual playbook without any attempts at privacy.
Big game
Blockchair’s privacy tool didn’t score this transfer well, zero out of 100, thanks to matched addresses and the “send everything” strategy employed by our whale friend. But hey, that’s just how this particular whale rolls!
The last time this whale made moves was on May 22, when it also moved 2,000 BTC. Typically, it transfers smaller amounts, around 1,000 BTC at a time, so these larger transactions are quite rare.
Over the past four years, industry participants tracked this whale as it has moved thousands of BTC. So far this year alone, it has surfaced five times and shifted a total of 9,000 BTC from those ancient block rewards.
Before the recent transfer and the one in May, the whale popped up on March 3, March 5, and March 26 of this year.
Why are whales important?
While we can only speculate about the whale’s motivations, whether it’s signaling a change in strategy or simply reminding us of its presence, its consistent activity pattern hints at some calculated intentions lurking beneath the surface.
he way it clusters dormant block rewards and shifts toward P2SH addresses suggests there’s maybe more going on than meets the eye.
