In brief
- A long-dormant Bitcoin whale, inactive for seven years, has reawakened to sell a portion of its Bitcoin holdings.
- The investor used the proceeds to open massive leveraged long positions on Ethereum, a move experts view as a strategic bet on ETH’s future growth.
- This rare transfer could increase market volatility, but analysts believe the current mature market is better equipped to absorb such large-scale events than in the past.
A long-dormant OG Bitcoin whale has opted to swap a portion of their holdings to open leveraged long positions on Ethereum.
The whale held 14,837 BTC worth $1.67 billion for more than seven years without a transaction until today.
On August 21, the dormant whale moved roughly 670 BTC, worth $75 million at current prices, and split it among four wallets to open leveraged long positions on Ethereum. This signals a major asset rotation with clear bullish sentiment for the second-largest token by market capitalization.
At the time of writing, ETH is changing hands for $4,296.25 after having gained 4.1% in the past day. It’s still 6.4% down from last week, when it was hovering near its all-time high.
“This transfer indicates the activation of old BTC whales,” Slava Demchuk, CEO of blockchain analysis firm AMLBot, told Decrypt. He noted that the whale’s decision to sell Bitcoin to open leveraged long positions on Ethereum signals a “strategic rotation into alternative assets due to expectations of growth.”
The whale initially sold 660 BTC on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid and used the proceeds to open leveraged long positions.
Three out of the four long positions have a 10x leverage with a notional position size of $209 million.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading for around $113,000, having gained 1.2% in the past day, but down 10% from its peak on August 14.
Crypto and U.S. equities have been retreating as investors book profits and de-risk ahead of Friday’s Jackson Hole symposium. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to deliver a speech addressing concerns about inflation and providing guidance for the September rate decision.
According to experts who previously spoke to Decrypt, a rate cut has already been priced in. Only a surprise from the Federal Open Market Committee, the body that sets U.S. monetary policy, could trigger volatility.
Signs of a mature market
While such large-scale movements from dormant wallets can be a cause for concern among investors, Demchuk believes the market is more resilient than in the past.
He referenced a previous event in July 2025 where a Satoshi-era whale moved 80,000 BTC, worth roughly $8 billion, which led to a 5% price drop in Bitcoin.
This new activity, however, demonstrates that Bitcoin that was once considered lost is actually still available to its holder, which could increase supply and volatility.
“A mature market is better at absorbing such events,” Demchuk explained, suggesting that while the whale’s actions may introduce some short-term volatility, the overall ecosystem is now more capable of handling large transactions without a catastrophic price collapse.
Three other wallets from the Satoshi era have come alive in the past two months. The latest instance occurred on August 7, when the whale moved $349 million in BTC after a decade of inactivity.
July saw two such major moves with a $469 million transfer after 14 years of dormancy and the aforementioned $8 billion BTC transfer.
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