Coinbase product specialist Conor Grogan suggested the possibility of a hack involving $8.6 billion in Bitcoin moved from wallets that had been dormant for over 14 years. This event has drawn wide interest from the crypto community.
BTC Movement and Hack Probability
Conor Grogan suggested that the movement of $8.6 billion in Bitcoin that occurred on Thursday could have been the result of a hack of wallets that have not been used since 2011. He noted that if true, this could mark the largest heist in history. Grogan stated, "If true (again, I’m speculating on straws here), this would be by far the largest heist in human history."
Suspicious BCH Transaction
Grogan also pointed out a suspicious Bitcoin Cash (BCH) transaction that occurred just before the massive BTC movement, describing it as an unusual test transfer from one of the whale wallets involved. "There is a small possibility that the $8B in BTC that recently woke up were hacked or compromised private keys," he explained. This BCH test transaction took place 14 hours prior to the Bitcoin beginning to move in large chunks of 10,000 BTC at a time.
Bitcoin Now in New Wallets
On the same day, blockchain intelligence firm Arkham confirmed that a single entity moved the $8.6 billion worth of BTC from eight different wallets into eight new wallets, where the funds remain unmoved. Arkham noted that the Bitcoin had originally been transferred into the initial wallets on either April 2 or May 4, 2011, and had stayed dormant for more than 14 years before this sudden activity. Despite the massive moving of funds, Bitcoin's price remained relatively stable.
The exact reason for the asset transfer remains unclear, and the crypto community is closely monitoring these wallets, questioning whether the largest heist in cryptocurrency history has just occurred or if a whale is simply moving their fortune after over a decade of silence.
