Billionaire BTC whale deposited $1.15B worth of BTC into Coinbase Prime

Billionaire BTC whale address, bc1qe, deposited 11,620 BTC or $1.15B worth, into Coinbase Prime earlier this morning. Shortly after, the address transferred another 2,502 BTC or ~256M worth to a different Coinbase Prime deposit address. Despite the large outflows, the address still holds 10,115 BTC, or just over $1B worth.

A transfer of this magnitude to Coinbase Prime, an institution-focused platform, is a significant move. It differs from a transfer to a standard retail exchange, suggesting the whale may be engaging in sophisticated services like custody, over-the-counter (OTC) trading, or other prime brokerage activities rather than a simple market sale.

The majority of bc1qe’s BTC holdings were accumulated during early September when BTC was slowly climbing from $54K to $57K, putting this whale at approximately 80% up on their BTC purchases.

This accumulation timing indicates a highly profitable position. The decision to move the coins now, while holding such a large unrealized gain, is noteworthy. It suggests the whale could be looking to de-risk, take partial profits, or, as later suggested, utilize these assets in a new way.

These transfers could be related to a newly rolled out program by Coinbase to enable Coinbase users to take USDC loans against their BTC holdings. The program is powered by DeFi protocol, Morpho Labs, on Base and more collateral options are expected to be onboarded shortly.

If the whale is using this new loan program, it would be a major example of leveraging institutional-grade assets within a DeFi framework. This strategy would allow them to access US dollar liquidity (USDC) without having to sell their BTC, thus avoiding a taxable event and maintaining their long-term bullish position on Bitcoin.