A bitcoin wallet dormant since 2013 moved $31 million, and it's not the only one

On Monday, a bitcoin wallet that had been dormant since 2013 made headlines by transferring 500 BTC, worth approximately $31.3 million, to a new wallet. This was not an isolated incident, as several other old coins also moved on-chain within a narrow timeframe, all following the onset of the Coldcard hack on July 30. The wallet labeled 18TExP, which had not been active for 12.7 years, was flagged by on-chain tracker Whale Alert.

The wallet's owner has not been identified, but the move has been read as a security measure following the security crisis surrounding Coldcard, a popular Bitcoin-only hardware wallet. Blockchain analyst Lookonchain on X suggested that the owner might have moved the funds due to security concerns following the hack. Since the hack began, attackers have drained thousands of BTC from Coldcard-generated wallets, causing about $130 million in losses.

The spike in old-coin movement has also been noted in on-chain data from CryptoQuant, which shows that coins dormant for 10 years or more saw around 935 BTC move on August 3, the largest single-day total since March 20. Coins that had been dormant for five to seven years saw a significant spike as well, with approximately 6,388 BTC moving on July 31.

While old coins move for various reasons such as estate transfers and exchange consolidations, the clustering of large, long-dormant movements in the days following the Coldcard incident suggests that holders were taking proactive steps to migrate their funds for security reasons. The combined CEX volumes fell by 23.9% to $3.76 trillion in July, the lowest since November 2023, as the DEX spot market share climbed to a record 19.5% and RWA perps hit $460 billion.