A Bitcoin whale just sold $9.5 billion in crypto that was originally acquired for $54,000 in 2014 — recent 80,000 BTC transaction nets an 18 million percent return

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This transaction comes hot on the heels of the recent $8.6 billion one, acquired in the same era.

Bitcoin
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

We seem to be in the middle of an especially frisky season for the so-called Bitcoin whales, as another remarkable crypto-cash-in, valued at $9.5 billion, has been spotted. This extraordinary financial transaction comes to light just a couple of weeks after an $8 billion sale hit the Tom's Hardware headlines.

Kakashi on X/Twitter brought this huge trade to light, just ahead of the weekend. “The Bitcoin whale just sold all the 80,000 $BTC for $9.6B,” they remarked. “Which was bought at 2011 for $54,000.”

Those tens of thousands proved quite a canny investment, 14 years ago or so. Whipping out our abacus, we note that the unnamed whale made about an 18 million percent return. In easier to comprehend (or count to) figures, we could say that the whale’s investment ended up multiplying 176,000 compared to their initial stake. Others may prefer to say the return represented about a 145% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the 14 years hold (or is that hodl).

One thing is for sure, it would have been pretty difficult to hold onto so much BTC for so long, seeing its value skyrocket, drop back, and hit the stratosphere again. Some would still insist that investments in crypto are entirely speculative, with no material asset values to fall back on if the worst happens.

July – the peak of the BTC whaling season

As mentioned in the intro, we saw another huge BTC transaction near the beginning of the month. In that instance, another 14-year-diamond-hands crypto investor, rumored to be Roger Ver, made a 4 million percent return on their investment.

The story goes that Ver originally bought 80,000 BTC in 2014 for around $210,000. That was the height of the ‘Satoshi-era.’ In early July 2025, they offloaded the crypto for over $8.6 billion. We noted that the previous record whale BTC trading transaction was for 3,700 BTC.

Will we see further whales liquidate their crypto before July is out? We don’t know, but if another similar transaction occurs in short order, other long-term holders would have to think very hard about why.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lmcnabney
    A second dead wallet has been unlocked by quantum computing.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    The start of the end of the Ponzi scheme?

    Regards.
    Reply
  • nitrium
    I first heard about BitCoin when it was US$150 and was looking into the tech. I thought it was utter nonsense at the time. I'm not sure how I feel about it these days at almost 1000X (other than a missed opportunity), but I can't help but think there is at least a certain amount of "Tulip Mania" (look it up) going on here. And that did not end well for the bagholders.
    Reply
  • Air2004
    “Which was bought at 2011 for $54,000.”

    Let me check that headline again.
    Say what ??? Does anyone proof-read anymore ?

    (edited by Moderator for readability)
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    way back, in the long long ago, when BTC first came out. it was something goofy we played around with. you mined some (just using your cpu, nothing crazy like today), swapped it for random nonsense and basically treated it like a joke. the first time i saw someone sell if for something like 20/$1, i laughed so hard. who would be dumb enough to buy something we were getting for free?

    at one point i had a couple thousand of em from swapping em, minor mining efforts and such. like everything else you had a long time ago that was once worthless, had i only known........

    don't even know what i did with them all them years ago. don't think i gave em away and i surely did not sell em. might be one of those ghost wallets sitting around for all i know. i def don't have the wallet anymore, that's for sure.
    Reply
  • tiredcrow
    It's not a person, it's very likely a government or bank entity
    Reply
  • JRStern
    Math Geek said:
    way back, in the long long ago, when BTC first came out. it was something goofy we played around with. you mined some (just using your cpu, nothing crazy like today), swapped it for random nonsense and basically treated it like a joke. the first time i saw someone sell if for something like 20/$1, i laughed so hard. who would be dumb enough to buy something we were getting for free?
    I never owned any, but I was working for a game-related company circa 2005 and they were just starting with game to real world currencies and I thought it was Bitcoin going for a buck, and I though about trying to spend some on a pizza ... but none of this corresponds to what I now see as the official Bitcoin history, so whatever.
    Reply
  • thefreedomlayer
    They didn't sell. They moved it to several other wallets... Likely for security as legacy wallets are now not as secure. Please fact check.

    Also, it appears most commentators need to learn what real money is.
    Reply
  • IndyPokerGuy
    Poor journalism... the funds were moved... you cant tell if someone sold... nost likely for security...
    Reply
  • bit_user
    nitrium said:
    I can't help but think there is at least a certain amount of "Tulip Mania" (look it up) going on here. And that did not end well for the bagholders.
    The reason I sold my bitcoin, like 10 years ago, and walked away is that I realized it would never scale well enough to be used as cash. At that point, I was holding something that probably wouldn't be the ultimate crypto currency and I didn't want to be sitting on a pile of it, whenever it got eclipsed by something better.

    Even now, after seeing how the price has grown, I still wouldn't buy into Bitcoin. There's no guarantee people won't turn away from it to something better, in which case the price could just begin a long, slow slide back down towards zero.

    It is the ultimate example of something that has value only because other people believe it has value.
    Reply