Over $6B worth of BTC moved by 5th-richest Bitcoin whale

(Coin Telegraph)-27/03/2024

The fifth-largest Bitcoin holding address — also dubbed “37X” — has moved over $6 billion worth of BTC to three new addresses for the first time since 2019.

The Bitcoin whale transferred nearly its entire balance of 94,500 Bitcoin, worth $6.05 billion, on March 23, leaving only 1.4 BTC in the initial address, according to a March 25 X post by Arkham Intelligence. It wrote:

“$5.03B BTC was sent to bc1q8yj, with addresses bc1q6m5 and bc1q592 receiving $561.46M and $488.40M in BTC respectively. bc1q592 has since sent those funds onwards.”

The transfer occurred during a period of increased institutional interest in Bitcoin, driven by the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which will slash block issuance rewards in half when it occurs in late April.

Despite the Bitcoin price reaching an all-time high before the halving for the first time in history, the incoming supply issuance reduction is still not priced in to the full extent, co-founder of D8X decentralized exchange and former executive director at UBS told Cointelegraph.

The over $6 billion BTC transfer occurred two days before Bitcoin reclaimed the $70,000 psychological price level on March 25 for the first time in 10 days. As investors have resumed accumulating BTC off exchanges, BTC supply on Coinbase reached a nine-year low of 344,856 BTC on March 18.

Bitcoin rose 6.4% in the 24 hours leading up to 9:53 am in UTC to trade at $71,222, according to CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin’s current rally is mainly driven by the anticipation of the halving and the increased institutional inflows from the ten spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States, Christopher Cheung, partner at digital asset funds Ten Squared, told Cointelegraph in a research note:

“The involvement of traditional financial institutions like BlackRock and Fidelity in launching BTC products is further legitimizing cryptocurrency as an alternative asset class. This reduces the ‘career risk’ for investors who were previously hesitant to enter the crypto market.”

Bitcoin ETFs have reached a combined total of $58.3 billion in on-chain holdings, which represents 4.17% of the current BTC supply, according to Dune.