Galaxy Digital appears to offload bitcoin worth billions from OG whale trove: onchain analysts

Galaxy Digital moved almost 30,000 bitcoins, worth roughly $3.5 billion, to centralized exchanges on Friday, accelerating the liquidation of an 80,201 BTC trove originally consigned to the firm by a dormant 2011-era whale, data from blockchain analytics firm Arkham shows.

Observers flagged a 22,610 BTC transfer early Friday, followed hours later by several smaller deposits, including a 2,850 BTC push that Arkham traced to major venues such as Binance and OKX.

After the sales, Galaxy Digital withdrew about $1.15 billion in Tether’s USDT off exchanges and now retains 18,504 BTC worth about $2.14 billion from the whale’s holdings, according to Lookonchain.

The Block previously reported the whale’s initial 40,010 BTC deposit to Galaxy on July 15 and a subsequent 40,191 BTC shift on July 18, days after Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $122,838. Friday’s flows suggest roughly 61,697 BTC of the whale’s original cache have now been deposited on exchanges like Binance, Bitstamp, and OKX.

Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz said in an interview that BTC could reach $150,000 this year. Still, he opined that Ether could outperform Bitcoin in the next three to six months.

Novogratz’s prediction revolves around growing demand for crypto’s second-largest asset from public companies like BitMine Immersion and SharpLink Gaming that have spent billions buying ETH in recent weeks.

Bitcoin slipped 3% and traded below $115,000 amid the whale liquidation, while ETH changed hands for $3,671, up modestly during European hours, The Block’s price page shows.

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