With bitcoin drifting just beneath the $77,000 range, a whale moved a cache of 500 $BTC from a wallet established more than a decade ago. The funds appear to have flowed through the over-the-counter (OTC) desk Wintermute and a wallet identified as a Binance deposit address.
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Key Takeaways:
- Wintermute-linked wallets received 500 $BTC worth $38M after a 10-year dormancy period.
- Arkham Intelligence data flagged links between Wintermute transfers and a Binance deposit wallet.
- Bitcoin at $382 in Jan. 2016 turned 500 $BTC into a holding nearing $38 million today.
Bitcoin Whale Moves 500 $BTC; Assets Likely Sold
A sizable trove of bitcoin originally acquired on Jan. 23, 2016, or roughly ten years and four months ago, was transferred at block height 950100. The onchain discovery was first noticed by the Bitcoin blockchain parser btcparser.com.
The legacy P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) wallet moved 500 $BTC worth slightly more than $38 million based on current exchange rates. The timing stands out as bitcoin prices have slipped roughly 4% over the past seven days.
Even so, bitcoin traded at $382 per coin when the stash was first accumulated, placing the entire holding at a value of about $191,000. At today’s exchange rates, the owner has recorded a 200-fold gain, translating to a 19,996% return over the past decade. With that in mind, a modest 4% pullback carries little significance when viewed through a long-term lens.
From an onchain standpoint, the coins were likely liquidated. The 500 $BTC moved from the original P2PKH wallet to a Nested Segwit / P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) address linked to the OTC desk Wintermute. The Wintermute-linked address is flagged by Arkham Intelligence and is reportedly tied to a Binance deposit wallet.
The transfer illustrates how deeply early bitcoin positions can reshape financial outcomes long after the original purchase fades from memory. While short-term traders fixate on weekly price swings, decade-old wallets continue to tell a different story about patience, liquidity and market maturity. Large dormant holdings entering institutional trading channels may hint at an ecosystem increasingly defined by professionalized capital movement.
