Bitcoin (BTC) whales appeared to have reignited market fears last week as reports circulated that long-term holders were offloading thousands of dormant coins, triggering a price dip below $104,000.
But onchain analysts say the situation may not be as alarming as it looks.
Bitcoin, currently trading at $106,332, is up 3.2% in the past 24 hours but remains nearly 19% below its all-time high of $126,000 reached on Oct. 6, according to CoinGecko data.
The correction, which began in mid-October, has been widely attributed to selling pressure from "OG whales" — entities that have held their BTC for more than seven years.
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'Super whales are cashing out,' says Edwards
On Nov. 6, Charles Edwards, co-founder of digital asset firm Capriole Investments, shared a Glassnode chart on X (formerly Twitter) showing significant outflows from wallets dormant since before 2018.
"Super whales are cashing out of Bitcoin," Edwards wrote, adding that transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars had surged since the start of the year.
In the chart, orange and red bars represent transactions exceeding $100 million and $500 million, respectively — all from long-inactive addresses.
The bars, Edwards said, "became very colorful in 2025," suggesting that dormant investors are increasingly realizing profits during the current bull cycle.
Data shows that the frequency of high-value spending events, defined as periods where whales move more than 1,000 BTC per hour, has risen sharply since January, marking what Edwards called "persistent distribution" from early adopters.
One example came to light last weekend when onchain analytics platform Lookonchain identified movements from a wallet belonging to an entity known as "Bitcoin OG Owen Gunden."
According to Lookonchain, the wallet moved 3,600 BTC, worth about $372 million, with around 500 BTC ($51.68 million) deposited to the exchange Kraken.
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Woo: it's 'housekeeping'
Onchain analyst Willy Woo offered a counterpoint to the "OG dump" narrative, suggesting that the data may have been misinterpreted.
"Supply in taproot addresses (the latest format) [has been] on a decline since Jan 2024," Woo wrote. "Taproot addresses are vulnerable to quantum long-range attacks, while segwit [light blue] are resistant if it's in a clean address without reuse. OG coins may just be doing some housecleaning."
Woo's comment refers to the Taproot upgrade, activated in late 2021, which improved Bitcoin's privacy and transaction efficiency but also introduced a new address type. According to Woo, some early holders are now moving their coins from Taproot to SegWit addresses to mitigate potential quantum-computing vulnerabilities, not necessarily to sell.
In a follow-up post, Woo explained the color-coded chart shared with his followers:
"Purple/pink = taproot. Everything else in the chart has resistance to quantum long-range attack if the address has no reuse," he wrote. "The post is on the topic of 'OGs are selling,' which assumes old coins moving out of old addresses is a sell; it could just simply be housekeeping."
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This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Nov 10, 2025, where it first appeared in the Trading News & Analysis section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
