Bitcoin (BTCUSD) has delivered stratospheric gains over the past few months. It will likely continue doing so over the long run, but the price action has made a technical reversal after failing to hold above the $120,000 level.
However, this may not be just due to technical reasons, as a massive $9 billion Bitcoin sale by a mysterious “Satoshi-era” whale has led to some bearishness.
Asset manager Galaxy Digital disclosed on July 25 that a wallet with 80,000 BTC offloaded its holdings. This wallet was dormant after accumulating its holdings between 2010 and 2011. Back then, BTC was worth $1 to $10 each! For those unfamiliar, Satoshi Nakomoto is the “presumed” pseudonym of the person or people who developed BTC and wrote its white paper.
This wallet has held Bitcoin through thick and thin, as confidence in BTC was drastically lower even just five years ago. Scott Melker, a popular crypto commentator and influencer, said that early whales were losing faith, athough this is unlikely to be the case. Crypto whales aren’t a monolith, so they’re not going to collectively lose faith. If anything, confidence should be higher today than at any point before. Never has Bitcoin been so popular as it is today, and even the U.S. government has an official Bitcoin reserve now, with the number of vendors accepting Bitcoin expected to grow fast. Even Texas approved its own BTC reserve. All things considered, Bitcoin maxis remain in the driving seat.
It is more plausible that with BTC becoming so accepted in the mainstream, that it is easier for the whale to conduct such a large sale all at once. Plus, billions in Bitcoin would make anyone antsy to withdraw and retire for good.
Regardless, many in the crypto community think more Satoshi-era wallets could wake up and disrupt the market.
The immediate market impact of this whale selling was surprisingly muted. The market absorbed it, and BTC fell to its current price near $115,000 days after the transaction, likely for other reasons including tariff-driven risk-off sentiment.
There’s plenty of liquidity in the market, and any immediate subsequent sales of this size are unlikely. You should also keep in mind that tens of billions in BTC change hands every day, with roughly equal amounts on each side of the order book, assuming BTC trades flat.