On Friday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern, Galaxy Digital—a firm specializing in digital assets and data center infrastructure—announced in a press release that it had carried out one of the largest bitcoin moves linked to an early bitcoin holder by “completing the sale of more than 80,000 bitcoin.”
Galaxy Digital Sells $9B in Vintage Bitcoin Without Rocking the Market
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Market Shrugs Off Galaxy’s Massive 80,000 BTC Sale
Right before the weekend, Galaxy Digital disclosed it sold 80,000 bitcoin on behalf of a client. The identity of the whale was already known—these coins came from wallets created in April and May 2011, which were then pooled and transferred to Galaxy. What remained a mystery until today was whether these vintage bitcoins actually hit the open market.
Galaxy’s press release states:
“Galaxy completed the sale of more than 80,000 bitcoin—valued at over $9 billion based on current market prices—for a Satoshi-era investor, representing one of the earliest and most significant exits from the digital asset market. The transaction was part of the investor’s broader estate planning strategy.”
While coins from wallets created in 2009 are exceedingly rare, dormant bitcoins from addresses set up in 2010 and 2011 are also very scarce—just not quite as elusive as the 2009 spends. Bitcoin.com News previously reported that Galaxy distributed a hefty volume of BTC during overnight trading sessions. Many pointed to Galaxy’s transfers to multiple counterparties as a factor behind the market dip.
After the press release dropped, plenty of social media users expressed surprise—in a good way—that the market absorbed an enormous 80,000 BTC stash worth more than $9 billion with hardly a ripple.
This resilience suggests that such massive sales may not rattle bitcoin as much as expected, since demand for this limited crypto remains steady. The same applies to state-owned bitcoin, as the U.K. plans to offload its 61,245 BTC cache, valued at roughly $7.18 billion, today.
