Bitcoin Cash Moves Spark Speculation Ahead of $8.5B Satoshi-Era BTC Transfer

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) saw unexpected movement late Friday, coinciding with the largest ever transfer of dormant “Satoshi-era” Bitcoin (BTC). BCH surged to $483.67 following a suspicious transaction involving over 10,000 BCH (worth nearly $5 million), raising concerns of a potential private key compromise.

Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, flagged the BCH transaction as being tied to one of eight legacy whale wallets. These wallets, inactive since 2011, each moved 10,000 BTC—totaling 80,000 BTC or $8.5 billion—just one hour after the BCH test. The BTC was sent to newly created SegWit addresses, triggering speculation across the crypto community.

Grogan suggested the BCH transaction may have been a stealth test to validate access to old private keys before moving the BTC. Since BCH is less monitored by whale-tracking tools, the move could have been an attempt to avoid alerting the market. Interestingly, only one BCH address in the cluster was touched, implying partial or limited access to the full set of keys.

The timing and scale of the transfers have sparked a range of theories—from private key leaks to potential quantum computing risks. Some early Bitcoin addresses, especially those using Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) formats, reveal public keys upon spending and are theoretically vulnerable to quantum attacks using Shor’s algorithm, if such hardware becomes viable.

Currently, the newly activated BTC addresses haven’t forwarded funds or interacted with exchanges, further deepening the mystery. The coordinated nature of the event suggests a deliberate, cautious approach, likely to minimize market disruption or traceability. Whether this marks a new threat vector or just a rare legacy access test, crypto watchers remain on high alert.