The crypto was dormant in the account for over seven years and with the move, a majority found its way to personal wallets.
A crypto wallet belonging to the shutdown crypto exchange BTC-e has just moved 10,000 Bitcoin BTC $16,627, currently worth over $165 million, to various exchanges, and personal wallets.
While this withdrawal is the largest made by BTC-e since April 2018, BTC-e and WEX, an exchange that is thought to be BTC successor both sent small amounts of BTC to Russian electronic payments service Webmoney on Oct. 26 before making a test payment on Nov. 11, then transferring out a further 100 BTC on Nov. 21.
Of the total amount sent, 9,950 BTC is thought to still be located in personal wallets, while the rest was moved through intermediaries before ending up at four deposit addresses in two large exchanges.
Blockchain analytics firm Cryptoquant co-founder and CEO, Ki Young Ju, also verified the findings noting 0.6% of the funds were sent to exchanges and may represent sell-side liquidity.
Mt. Gox was a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange that once accounted for more than 70% of Bitcoin transactions. In 2014, the exchange was hacked with thousands of Bitcoin stolen, the exchange filed for bankruptcy shortly after.
BTC-e, which had its servers located in the United States, had its website shut down and funds seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2017 after allegations that it was involved in money laundering, including crypto stolen during the Mt. Gox exchange hack.
At the time of its shutdown BTC-e still held a substantial amount of Bitcoin, and in April 2018 moved over 30,000 BTC out of its service wallet.
While the owners of BTC-e attempted to remain anonymous, Alexander Vinnik is thought to be the main operator and has been embroiled in legal battles for the last five years as a result.
A WizSecurity report released in 2017 alleged that BTC-e and Vinnik were directly involved in the theft of Mt. Gox Bitcoin and user funds, with the latter being forced to suspend trading and close its website after the losses.
