Largest Heist Ever? Coinbase Exec Explains Why The Mysterious $8 Billion BTC Transfer Was Possibly A Hack

On Thursday, a single entity transferred $8.6 billion worth of Satoshi-era Bitcoin from eight addresses that had held on to the BTC fortune for over 14 years.

Conor Grogan, the director of America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, suggested there is a chance the $8.6 billion BTC movement was caused by a hack that might set a new heist record.

Suspicious BCH Transaction Raises Alarm

“There is a small possibility that the $8B in BTC that recently woke up were hacked or compromised private keys,” Grogan observed, pointing out a suspicious Bitcoin Cash (BCH) transaction of over 10,000 tokens (valued at roughly $5 million at current prices) made before the main transfers involving 80,000 Bitcoin began.

The move raised the likelihood of someone accessing legacy private keys and quietly testing them before commencing the massive BTC movements.

“There is a possibility that the owner was testing the private key in a way that wouldn’t get noticed,” Grogan said in a post on Twitter (aka X). “BCH isn’t monitored heavily by whale-watching services.”

The pundit stressed that he saw the behavior as unusual:

“What makes me say this is that the other BCH wallets have not been touched at all; why wouldn’t they also sweep these? It implies the actor may not have full access.”

Incoming Selling Pressure?

According to onchain sleuths, all of the Bitcoin was moved into the original wallets on April 2 or May 4, 2011, and had remained untouched for over 14 years after initially receiving the coins in what is now colloquially known as the network’s “Satoshi era,” when its pseudonymous creator was still active online.

No individual or company has, so far, publicly claimed ownership of these wallets, but the timing and scope of the transfers left onlookers befuddled. This is particularly because enormous fund movements by OG wallets often hint at incoming selling pressure.

But in this case, the Bitcoin is still sitting in the eight new wallets and hasn’t been deposited into exchange addresses. 

Bitcoin was recently trading hands at $108,029 per coin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko, after barely changing over a 24-hour timeframe despite the uncertainty. The leading cryptocurrency is about 3.4% down from the lifetime high of $111,814 it registered in May.