‘Small possibility’ $8.6B Bitcoin transfer was due to hack: Coinbase exec

Conor Grogan, Coinbase’s head of product, says there’s a slight chance the $8.6 billion Bitcoin moved on Thursday — from a single whale who had held it for over 14 years across eight wallets — was caused by a hack, and if so, it could be the largest robbery ever.

“If true (again, I’m speculating on straws here), this would be by far the largest heist in human history,” Grogan said in an X post on Friday, after raising the slim chance that the $8.6 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) moved from eight separate wallets was the work of bad actors.

Suspicious BCH transaction has Grogan scratching his head

“There is a small possibility that the $8B in BTC that recently woke up were hacked or compromised private keys,” Grogan said, pointing out a suspicious Bitcoin Cash (BCH) transaction made before the significant transfers on Thursday involving 10,000 Bitcoin at a time.

“I found a single BCH test transaction from one of the BTC whale clusters 14 hours ago, followed by the full amount. An hour later, the BTC wallets began to move,” he said.

Grogan said it is possible that the wallet owner may have been quietly testing the private key, since Bitcoin Cash transactions don’t attract as much attention from whale tracking services. However, he reiterated he found the behavior unusual:

“What makes me say this is the other BCH wallets have not been touched at all; why wouldn’t they also sweep these?”

In a post on the same day, blockchain intelligence firm Arkham said it was a single entity that moved $8.6 billion worth of Bitcoin from eight separate wallets. 

$8.6 billion Bitcoin is now sitting in eight new wallets

Arkham said that all the Bitcoin was transferred into the original wallets on either April 2 or May 4, 2011, and had remained on the wallets for more than 14 years.

Arkham said the Bitcoin is now stored in eight new wallets and hasn’t been moved since.

Bitcoin’s price has stayed relatively stable, dipping 1.02% in the last 24 hours and trading at $108,150 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data.