Yesterday, Tesla moved all its BTC to a wallet, whose ownership is still unknown, without any impact on the price of Bitcoin.
Although it is not yet entirely clear what happened, and especially why, the markets interpreted that potentially sensational movement as a mere internal technical shift irrelevant to the market itself.
The movement of Tesla’s Bitcoin and the impact on BTC price
According to data from Arkham Intelligence, until yesterday there were almost 12,000 BTC on the known Bitcoin addresses belonging to Tesla.
Today there does not appear to be any more.
In the span of a few hours, the company moved all its BTC from its known addresses to other addresses. Moreover, it had been years since those BTC had been moved.
At this moment, no one yet knows to whom the addresses belong to which Tesla has sent all its BTC, but the hypothesis that seems most probable is that they are simply new addresses of Tesla not yet known.
It should be remembered that the blockchain of Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, and it is in no way possible to trace the owner of an address by simply analyzing the public on-chain data.
Tesla moreover has not publicly clarified the nature of this move, and its motivations, so there are still no certainties about it.
Given, however, that it was a transfer of all its BTC (almost 12,000) carried out in a few hours, the explanation that currently seems most plausible is that it was just a reorganization of the company’s crypto wallets with internal transfers of the Bitcoin to new addresses still owned by them.
The effect on the price of BTC (Bitcoin) after Tesla’s move
When the movements started, which are monitored in real-time by platforms like Arkham Intelligence, the price of Bitcoin practically did not react at all.
Even when the news began to spread, there was no significant decline.
The fact is that if the transfer had been made to sell those BTC on the exchanges, the markets would have reacted poorly, because 12,000 BTC put up for sale in such a short time would significantly increase the selling pressure on the crypto markets.
However, there is also the possibility that they have been moved to the unknown wallet of an OTC exchange, and therefore the sale could take place in a non-evident way, but it would still be very strange for a company like Tesla to sell all its Bitcoin in one go with a total market value of about 800 million dollars.
Since the previous addresses were managed by Coinbase Prime Custody, perhaps it was just a change of custody service provider.
Other movements of BTC
In these days, other interesting on-chain movements of Bitcoin have been recorded.
Arkham Intelligence has discovered that on Monday a whale that had mined BTC just five days after the first block had just moved more than a thousand BTC to Kraken, with a dollar equivalent value exceeding $600,000.
The same whale in the last 2 months has moved Bitcoin for a total value of 5.47 million dollars. As of today, its known addresses still hold more than 75.2 million dollars in Bitcoin.
It is not about Satoshi Nakamoto, but still one of the very first Bitcoin miners besides him.
Moreover, this whale until a few months ago had never moved those BTC mined in 2009.
However, this is not the only similar movement in recent times, even if it is the one that has moved the oldest BTC.
The hypothesis in these cases is that they are old holders who might want to sell a small portion of the BTC they still have in their portfolio to monetize.
Today’s Analysis of Bitcoin (BTC) Price
It should not be forgotten that the price of Bitcoin is on the rise, and it is now only -9% from the historical highs of March.
Furthermore, it is possible that in the second half of October a new bull run may begin, as has already happened in the past both times when the halving took place before the presidential elections in the USA.
Therefore, it is absolutely plausible that in such a scenario some holders are preparing to monetize part of their BTC, perhaps hoping that the selling price in the coming weeks could once again be at all-time highs.
This, however, on the other hand, also suggests that if many holders were to sell, in the event of new highs, the price could fall, but the great bull runs of Bitcoin in the past have lasted about 12 months, so even these sales could ultimately prove only capable of temporarily slowing it down.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2024/10/16/tesla-moves-all-its-bitcoin-without-impact-on-the-price/