‘Ancient’ Bitcoin whale moves more BTC mined from 2009: Arkham


An “ancient” Bitcoin whale that mined BTC in the Bitcoin network’s first two months of existence has moved more BTC to cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, a blockchain data firm says.

“This Bitcoin was mined ONE MONTH after Bitcoin’s launch in Feb/March 2009,” Arkham Intelligence pointed out in an Oct. 4 X post.

The mysterious Bitcoin whale transferred 10 Bitcoin (BTC) — worth $610,000 — in the latest Oct. 3 transfer.

They have now moved $3.58 million to Kraken since Sept. 24. Before that, the wallet address had been dormant for a decade, Arkham noted in an earlier X post:

“After moving several times from 2011-2014, his Bitcoin was then held dormant for almost 10 YEARS straight – during which it increased in value from $474K to over $80M.”

The “3JZsd…QerUW” wallet address currently holds 1,169 Bitcoin (BTC) — worth $72.4 million at today’s prices — Arkham data shows.

Source: Arkham Intelligence

It comes amid renewed speculation over the true identity of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

HBO is set to release the “Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery” documentary on Oct. 8 which the producers claim will reveal who Nakamoto is.

Related: Exclusive: Inside a Swiss nuclear bunker’s secret Bitcoin vault

Deceased American computer scientist Len Sassaman is the odds-on favorite to be named Nakamoto in the HBO documentary.

Sassaman was a renowned cypherpunk who committed suicide on July. 3, 2011 — a little over two months after Nakamoto disclosed they had “moved on to other things.”

A memorial of Sassaman was encoded into Block 138,725 of the Bitcoin blockchain.

It’s unclear exactly what connection Sassaman had with Bitcoin.

However, Cointelegraph found several 13-year-old X posts of Sassaman criticizing Bitcoin for its lack of “privacy” features and “fraud reversal protection.”

Bitcoin-related X posts shared from Sassaman’s X account in 2011. Source: Len Sassaman

Back in 2021, Sassaman’s late wife Meredith Patterson said to the “best of my knowledge, Len was not Satoshi.”

Bitcoin is currently trading at $61,815 — up 1.5% over the last 24 hours but still 16% off its March. 14 all-time high of $73,738, CoinGecko data shows.

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