Bitcoin whale awakens after 12 years, transfers 1,000 BTC before US Fed meeting

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A dormant Bitcoin whale moved $116 million of the cryptocurrency ahead of the Fed’s key interest rate decision as crypto traders braced for volatility in global markets.

Bitcoin whale awakens after 12 years, transfers 1,000 BTC before US Fed meeting

A long-dormant Bitcoin whale moved about $116 million worth of the cryptocurrency after 12 years, just before the US Federal Reserve’s closely watched interest rate decision.

The unknown whale woke up after 12 years of dormancy to transfer 1,000 Bitcoin (BTC) — worth around $116 million at current prices — which he initially acquired for about $847 per coin. The BTC was worth around $847,000 at the time, which the whale hodled for over a decade before transferring it to new wallets on Wednesday, according to blockchain data platform Lookonchain.

The over $100 million transfer occurred shortly before Wednesday’s upcoming Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, a highly anticipated event that may deliver the first US interest rate cut of the year.

Crypto traders brace for market volatility ahead of FOMC meeting

Market watchers are calling the Fed’s decision one of the most significant of the year, with 96% of participants anticipating a 25 basis point cut, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool. That estimate was up from 85% a month ago.

“Tomorrow is the most important FOMC of our lives …until the next one,” said the founder and CEO of Into The Cryptoverse, Benjamin Cowen, in a Wednesday X post.

Despite the optimistic outlook, most cryptocurrency traders are positioning themselves for a short-term decline in the crypto market.

Over 57% of Bitcoin holders across all exchanges are currently short, meaning that they are betting on Bitcoin’s price decline, while only 42% remain long, according to blockchain data from CoinAnk.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin futures open interest fell by over $2 billion in five days, signaling more de-risking amid futures traders ahead of the FOMC meeting, Cointelegraph reported on Monday.

Still, traders on the world’s largest exchange, Binance, have been buying Bitcoin ahead of the key interest rate decision.

Binance saw nine days of “constructive outflows” for Bitcoin leading up to the FOMC meeting, a trend that appears to be a “major driver behind Bitcoin’s recent bounce from $108k to +$115k,” according to onchain insights platform CryptoQuant.

Analysts at Bank of America expect at least two interest rate cuts by the Fed in 2025 — September and November — while economists at Goldman Sachs are projecting three 25 BPS cuts for this year, Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 6.