Bitcoins from 2011 Moved. Their Owner is Up $10 Million

A transfer of nearly 50 $BTC with a total value of about $3.2 million was made from a Bitcoin wallet created in 2011, as noted by Galaxy Research. The owner of this address accumulated 144 $BTC 15 years ago, and their profit from the price increase is now estimated at nearly $10 million.

The Bitcoins were deposited into the wallet in 10 transactions from July to October 2011, according to BitInfoCharts data. The price of $BTC during this period fell from $13.99 to $2.76, and at the time the deposits ceased, the total sum of 144 $BTC was valued at $399.

Ten years later, in 2021, the owner withdrew the first 11 $BTC at a rate of $39 thousand. The second time—almost at the market peak in the fall of 2025 at a rate of $122 thousand—they transferred nearly 13 $BTC. Yesterday evening, August 6th, they made a third transfer, noticed by Galaxy.

The wallet balance still holds 70 $BTC, which are worth about $4.5 million at the current rate. In total, the early crypto-holder's profit from price changes over 15 years amounts to $9.75 million.

The transferred 50 Bitcoins have not been sold yet, but there is a possibility that the goal of the transfer was precisely a sale. According to Arkham's labeling, the funds were moved to another address, from which coins are periodically sent to accounts at the institutional crypto broker FalconX.

The address currently holding the 50 $BTC was created in 2021 and belongs to newer SegWit format addresses, starting with "bc1". They save space when sending transactions, which reduces fees, and are considered more secure.

In 2025, early Bitcoin holders began transferring assets en masse from old wallets to new ones, as they started receiving messages that the company Saloman Brothers had taken control of the wallets and was requiring confirmation from owners that the wallets were not abandoned. Analysts concluded this was a scam, but owners of old Bitcoins changed their addresses to new ones for security purposes.

At the beginning of this week, a surge in crypto transfers was also recorded. Users transferred $9 billion in Bitcoin to exchanges and new addresses following the hacking of more than $115 million from the popular Bitcoin wallet Coldcard. This marked the first case of hacking with mass theft from hardware wallets (physical devices), which were traditionally considered one of the most reliable storage methods.