The recent price records for BTC coincided with a wave of old whales moving their coins. Some suggested this may be a drive to take profits, but there may be another reason, as more old whales are dusted with transactions containing warning messages.
There may be one common reason as to why old whales are moving their coins. After years of holding, some of the largest holders transferred their coins. The most notable case was of one user moving 80,000 BTC from several wallets.
The reason may be hiding behind the spread of messages, which are considered a specific scam using the op return function of Bitcoin transactions.
Investigators, however, noted that many old whale wallets received dust amounts of BTC with a pseudo-legal message attached to the transaction.
The targeted addresses were not specifically chosen, except by one common thread – a high balance and old wallets from the early years of the network.
Dust messages reach BTC lost in landfill
One on-chain investigator noted the pseudo-legal messages reached a notorious BTC wallet. The stash belonged to James Howells, known for trashing a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC.
Since the address is widely known and the coins are considered lost, the legal claim to the BTC in Howell’s wallet is meaningless.
Just realized that the person who sent notices to the 80,000 BTC that moved earlier this month has also been targeting several other dormant addresses, including the one belonging to James Howells, the guy who lost his hard drive in the landfill.
This pretty much puts the hack…
— Sani | TimechainIndex.com (@SaniExp) July 23, 2025
This also suggests that the whale that moved 80,000 BTC may have acted out of caution, despite the fact that BTC cannot be claimed legally and used for its purpose without control over the private keys.
Unfortunately, even a legal claim would not be able to salvage Howells’ coins. The wallet has been pelted with messages and even an ultimatum to prove that the coins are not forfeited.
Howells has been given a deadline until September 30 to prove ownership. One of the messages even read ‘we have taken possession of this wallet and its contents’. Unless the sender managed to unearth the hard drive and revive the old wallet, the message remained meaningless.
There is currently no explicit list of addresses that received the fake legal claims through op_return. Other old whales may also have moved their coins as a precaution or to shift them to a new address format.
Newer whales that bought at a more favorable price did not receive the legal notes. Recently, three wallets linked to the same entity moved 10,606 BTC, potentially having a medium-term strategy.
BTC whales have already taken profits
A total of 14.7M BTC are held in wallets aged 155 days or over. Most of the older whales have moved their coins and realized profits during the earlier BTC bull rallies.
Since 2023, the percentage of coins held for more than one year has been sliding slowly.
Overall, ancient cohorts of over 7 years rarely move their coins. Newer whales have a double strategy of holding some of the BTC, while using a portion for short-term trading.
The newest class of corporate and institutional buyers has diverging approaches to announcing their wallets. Some are showing proof of public reserves, while others try to keep their wallets a secret to avoid exposure and eventual attacks.