Satoshi era whale wakes up and moves 2,000BTC

According to recent data provided by Julio Moreno, head of research at cryptocurrency analysis firm CryptoQuant, “Satoshi-era” miners have just moved 2,000 bitcoins.

As Moreno noted, this is the first significant activity by this group of ancient holders since November 2024.

“Historically, Satoshi-era miners were moving Bitcoin at key inflection points,” Moreno said.

Netflow decoding

The term “Satoshi Era” usually refers to those who generated coins during the time when the original cryptocurrency's elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was still active in public forums.

At the time, these were mined with simple CPUs and BTC didn't have much value.

Most coins from this era are considered “lost” or “frozen.” Therefore, the moment when a whale makes such a sudden splash will attract a lot of attention on social media.

The chart provided by Moreno shows the “net flow” of coins during the Satoshi era. It measures the difference between the coins that go into the miner wallet and the coins that go out.

A chart provided by an analyst shows that every red spike represents a moment when ancient miners “cashed out” or moved large amounts of Bitcoin.

This graph shows a clear pattern of behavior. These “OG” whales tend to pitch to rallies.

For example, when Bitcoin topped $40,000 in 2021 and raced toward $60,000, miners aggressively sold thousands of coins. There was also a massive spike in Bitcoin reaching $91,000 in late 2024.

The importance of whale movement

Private investors operate on the belief that whales (particularly those of the Satoshi era) know something they don't. Moreover, whales with such large holdings obviously have a lot of influence on the market.

Last month, for example, roughly $183 million worth of vintage Bitcoin was mobilized in just 72 hours.