Five dormant Bitcoin wallets, untouched for approximately 11 years, suddenly activated to send 107 BTC worth around $8.3 million to a burn address. The coordinated transactions destroyed coins that would have been worth nearly $13.4 million at Bitcoin’s peak last October. Observers speculated the move could be an accidental quantum bounty or a deliberate security measure against theft.
Five Bitcoin wallets that had remained inactive for about 11 years came to life yesterday. They sent their combined holdings of 107 BTC, worth around $8.3 million, to a burn address. Blockchain analytics account Lookonchain flagged the transactions and called the event “just unbelievable.”
Because all five wallets moved at nearly the same time, observers concluded the activity was likely coordinated. The wallets, created in 2014, paid about $5.56 in total fees to destroy the BTC. At Bitcoin’s all-time high of more than $126,000 last October, the coins would’ve been worth close to $13.4 million.
On-chain data shows the funds landed on a well-known burn address. This address currently holds over 807 BTC valued at around $61 million accumulated across many transactions.
Blockstream CEO Adam Back described it as an “accidental quantum bounty.” He noted the burn address’s public key can be mathematically derived, meaning powerful quantum computers could theoretically calculate the private key. Others on X offered different theories about the unusual transaction.
One user floated the idea that an AI chatbot with wallet access made a mistake. Developer Bit Dov proposed the sender may have deliberately torched the coins to give a potential attacker nothing to steal. That same developer also noted the transaction included time-based parameters, suggesting a possible dead man’s switch.
At the time the burn was reported, Bitcoin was trading at around $77,000. The asset was struggling to hold momentum and sat below its 200-day moving average near $80,000. This context makes the decision to destroy $8.3 million even harder to comprehend, as the BTC could have been sold in a reasonably liquid market.
