BTC Wealth Report – Issue 15

👋 Welcome to BTC Wealth — Issue 15

A Bitcoin whale woke up this week and and sold 80,202 BTC into the market (That’s $9.6 billion!). 

The Whale hasn’t moved the coins since 2011 and now, just as we’re breaking out into all time highs we get this sell pressure…

The glass half full news is that - Bitcoin barely blinked.

Price action remained steady, buyers stepped in, and the only cost is a week of consolidation and a few itchy investors on X getting a bit salty as other crypto’s ripped higher during the week.

This event is reminiscent of Germany’s clumsy 50,000 BTC market dump this time last year around $55,000—though with one critical difference: the way they were sold.

That’s what we’re digging into this week.

The coin movements, how they were sold, similarities and differences to the German sell-off.

Let's dive in.

🐳 The Whale Awakens: 80,000 BTC on the move

The Bitcoin whale transferred some 80,000 BTC to the investment firm Galaxy Digital this week - who by all accounts - facilitated the largest ever sale from a Satoshi-era wallet (In dollar terms).

The coins were accumulated in 2011 at prices ranging between $0.78 and $3.37 per BTC— A 72,000x return for some prescient investor.

Who is this whale? Amazingly, in a major privacy win for Bitcoin, their identity remains a total mystery—so for now, we’ll just stick with calling them the whale.

🛡️ Security or Profit-Taking?

On July 4, the whale initially shuffled the coins into modern addresses.

The transfer moved the coins from old addresses to modern bc1q addresses.

Initially it looked like this wasn’t a sale - or at least the hope was that this was just some wallet management - perhaps for increased security.

Unfortunately on July 14th, the coins started moving again.

(Fortunately - if you’re still looking for the chance to stack some cheap sats!)

💸 How the Trade Went Down: Using Galaxy Digital

This whale didn’t repeat Germany’s amateur-hour dump from 2024 - where they transparently and repeatedly sent 10,000 + coins to Coinbase for market sells.

Instead, they smartly partnered with Galaxy Digital, the crypto investment firm led by Mike Novogratz, known for sophisticated over-the-counter (OTC) trading.

The Whale used Galaxy because they can minimize the slippage for the trader (i.e. reduce the amount that BTC Price falls due to coins being sold off).

Timeline of the event:

• July 4, 2025: Whale moves all 80,202 BTC into new addresses. Initial fears emerge about a large sell-off.

• July 14-15: 40,009 BTC moves again—about half heading to Galaxy Digital.

• July 17-18: The remaining 40,192 BTC sent to Galaxy Digital.

How Does Galaxy Actually Execute a $9.6 Billion BTC Sale?

Galaxy Digital acts as a market maker, and they have multiple sophisticated trading tools available.

In this scenario, they likely executed a large-scale short position spread across various OTC trading desks and major centralized exchanges.

Once the short positions were in place, Galaxy then used the whale’s Bitcoin stash to cover and close these trades—minimizing market volatility.

📈 ETF Watch: ETFs Keep Buying

Unsurprisingly Bitcoin price action was weak, in a period where Galaxy is selling off 80,000 Bitcoin.

What’s interesting is that despite the choppy price action US spot ETFs stepped up aggressively, adding 20,017 BTC this week alone.

Typically, inflows like are correlated with rising prices - but not always.

We saw something similar in July 2024, when Germany sold 50,000 BTC.

In both cases The ETFs acted as a counterbalance—soaking up whale-sized selling pressure.

I don’t think it’s random.

What we’re seeing is a dynamic where a large seller pushes the price below what it would naturally be, creating a window for ETFs and long-term buyers to load up.

If more whales start exiting, I’d expect the same pattern to play out again.

Final thoughts

Vijay Boyapati and Don McAlister, had an exchange on X, which sums up this type of event well:

The coins have moved from one person to many, with a cost basis $118,000 instead of $2. A natural and necessary evolution for Bitcoin — redistributing wealth from early believers to a broader, more global holder base.

The redistribution is part of enabling Bitcoin to become what it was always meant to be:

The world’s money.

There’s no doubt the selling puts a dampener on BTC price action - but it’s temporary and in the long run, it’s healthy for the network.

That’s your BTC Wealth Report this week.

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Thank you!
— Thomas Fahrer