Eighty Thousand Ancient Bitcoin
Imagine what it must be like to HODL 80k BTC since 2011. Well, a set of ancient wallets from a time when Bitcoin traded for less than $1 just moved...and the story gets weirder & weirder from there...
G’day Folks,
It’s not often we see eighty thousand Bitcoin of 2011 vintage on the move.
This week, a set of eight UTXOs, each containing 10k BTC (80k total) were spent and destroyed, creating one of the largest onchain footprints in history.
At first glance, I didn’t think too much of it, and thought it to be a nice reminder that old coins certainly can come back to life unexpectedly, especially in a bull market.
However…one of our paid subscribers Mark just shared this post by Cyphertux which is by far one of the most interesting reads I have come across in Bitcoin for some time. I would encourage anyone who wants to see some weird onchain performance art to have a read…you won’t expect where it leads.
There is no chance I can beat the wild story and analysis by Cypertux (kudos!) looking at why these coins are on the move. Suffice to say, I don’t think we have seen the final chapter of this particular story. Who knows how much of it holds water, but I found it to be quite the saga to think through.
However, what we can do, is use this massive movement of old coins to better calibrate our understanding of how onchain tools respond to such events.
My goal with this piece is to demonstrate how various onchain metrics, and pricing models adapt to large events like this, and use it as an opportunity to get under the hood as a learning exercise.
I will also be diving into the Cointime Economics framework I developed alongside onchain legend David Puell, which is purpose built to deal with just these scenarios.
Time to get a bit forensic!
📈 Reminder: you can find the charts from our articles on the Checkonchain Charting Website, and a guide in our Charts Tutorial Video.
Premium Members will find the TL:DR summary, video update and the rest of the written post below. Consider upgrading to premium today to unlock the rest of the content!