Old-School Bitcoin Whale Cashes In 1K BTC, Binance Gets a $72M Bath

A Bitcoin whale that’s been hibernating since the days of Silk Road mystique resurfaced this week, deciding it was finally time to lighten the load by another 1,000 BTC – a cool $71.6 million worth of digital gold. It seems even the most diamond-handed of OGs can get a little paper-handed when the profit numbers start looking like a phone number.

On-chain sleuths at EmberCN tracked the wallet (bc1q…6ym) as it has now shuttled a total of 3,500 BTC, worth roughly $332 million, into Binance’s welcoming maw since it started its sell-off last November. That’s a lot of Bitcoin moving from one digital vault to another, proving that in crypto, “not your keys, not your coins” eventually becomes “not your keys, not your Lambo.”

This particular leviathan of the deep has a cost basis that will make any modern degen weep with envy, dating back to 2013 when it scooped up coins at an average of $332 apiece. Fast forward to today, and it’s cashing out at an average of $94,786 per coin, banking a profit of roughly $330 million and still sitting on a cool 1,500 BTC ($106.8 million) for a rainy day. Talk about buying the dip and then napping through the entire bull market.

Not to be outdone, Lookonchain reported that early Bitcoin investor Owen Gunden decided to join the party, offloading another 650 BTC worth $46.3 million on the same day. This latest sale adds to a previous disposal spree that, according to Arkham data, totals a mind-boggling 11,000 BTC – over $1 billion. Gunden, perhaps wisely, was unavailable for comment, and as always in crypto, wallet attributions come with a side of healthy skepticism. After all, anonymity is a feature, not a bug.

All this movement paints a clear, on-chain picture: long-dormant crypto, the kind that’s been sitting untouched since memes were just images on 4chan, is waking up and flowing back into the market. It’s like watching a geological era of accumulation finally decide to erode, one Satoshi at a time.

CryptoQuant data drives the point home, showing the Bitcoin exchange-whale ratio hit a peak of 0.83 on March 14. In plain English, that means the top 10 BTC deposits made up a whopping 83% of all exchange inflows – a level of whale dominance not seen since last July. The ratio has since cooled to 0.66, but it still clearly signals that the big fish are the ones making the biggest splashes into trading pools. When the whales move, the market tends to notice, or at least get a little damp.