Six bitcoin (BTC) wallets untouched for up to 15 years moved 553.59 BTC, about $40.15 million, between Aug. 16 and Aug. 26, per Galaxy Research data. The coins came from six addresses dormant since 2011 through 2014. Most never touched an exchange.
Galaxy Research, the digital-asset firm’s research arm, flagged the cluster in an Aug. 26 note. The oldest wallet had been dormant 15.1 years. That one dates back to June 2011 and shifted 8.54 BTC. Another, inactive for 14 years, transferred 212 BTC, roughly $13.66 million at the time. The final transaction of the six sent 40 BTC from a wallet dormant 14.2 years to an address labeled as belonging to German crypto custodian Boerse Stuttgart Digital.
That destination is significant. A transfer to a custodian rather than an exchange suggests custody consolidation, an estate settlement, or a wallet upgrade, not necessarily a sale. The headline finding across outlets tracking the moves was that most of the coins avoided trading venues.
Two of the six wallets carried the label “Salomon Client Dusted,” tying them to litigation in New York’s “John Doe” case. That suit centers on an attempt to claim roughly 39,069 long-dormant bitcoin addresses, a pile of old coins with its own contested ownership history.
The age range runs 10.5 to 15.1 years. Some of these addresses predate the first halving. They last moved when bitcoin traded in the low double digits.
What triggered the moves now is not confirmed. The Phemex writeup noted that recent hardware wallet security incidents may have prompted some long-term holders to relocate funds, though it flagged that reasoning as unconfirmed.
For a market that reads every old-coin transfer as a sell signal, the data points the other way here. One wallet went to a named custodian. The rest are unaccounted for in the public record. Holders, as ever, are divided.
