Bitcoin starts week near record high as 80K BTC moves after 14 years
As Satoshi-era wallets saw over $8 billion worth of BTC on the move, Congress is gearing up for “Crypto Week”
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Bitcoin held up over the holiday weekend to notch its highest-ever weekly finish on Sunday at $109,263. The move capped a strong rebound from late-June profit-taking, driven by solid institutional flows and bullish momentum.
During the shortened trading week, spot bitcoin ETFs posted net inflows of $667 million, a strong show of demand despite quieter volumes around the Fourth of July US trading break.
Markets are now looking ahead to next week’s big macro events, with June CPI and PPI reports expected to clarify the inflation path and the Fed’s likely stance for the rest of 2025. Over the past few weeks, the consensus has shifted to two rate cuts as most probable over three. This week is lighter on data, but rates markets are pricing in minimal odds of a July move and growing debate over whether any cuts can happen at all before year end. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has intimated it will postpone its tariff implementation deadline to August.
“Crypto Week?”
On the policy front, US lawmakers are preparing for what some have dubbed “Crypto Week.” Starting July 14, House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR) and House Agriculture Chair GT Thompson (R-PA) will plan a series of votes related to the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act — the market structure bill — and the GENIUS Act, also known as the stablecoin bill. The latter was already passed by the Senate with bipartisan support.
Ahead of that, the Senate Banking Committee is set to hold a hearing on Wednesday, July 9, titled “From Wall Street to Web3: Building Tomorrow’s Digital Asset Markets.” The hearing is set to include testimony from Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin, Paradigm’s Dan Robinson, and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
Satoshi-era coins move
Beyond policy headlines, the Fourth of July holiday delivered real onchain fireworks. Around 80,000 BTC — worth over $8.6 billion today — held in untouched wallets dating back to 2011 suddenly moved for the first time in over 14 years. Four of eight known addresses transferred 40,000 BTC (~$4.35 billion) onchain in one of the largest-ever awakenings of “ancient” coins.
Blockchain watchers quickly noted that none of the BTC was sent to exchanges, easing fears of an immediate sale. Instead, the coins appear to have migrated from old legacy (P2PKH) addresses to modern Bech32 (SegWit) formats, boosting security and lowering future transaction fees. Bitcoin’s price barely dipped.
Analysts I’ve followed see motivations ranging from inheritance planning to consolidation under safer custody, with some even speculating about longer-term implications for Bitcoin’s quantum resistance.
Charles Guillemet, chief technology officer at hardware wallet maker Ledger, had an interesting observation: Someone had sent OP_RETURN messages to the same dormant wallets days earlier, claiming legal possession and demanding proof of ownership by October. While that prompted hack speculation, it’s also plausible the real owner may have seen those notices and proactively moved funds as a safeguard.
My colleague Jeff Albus pointed out that there’s an entire gray market economy around old wallet.dat files — copies of Bitcoin wallets known to contain funds but believed to be inaccessible due to lost keys or forgotten passwords. Although previously uncrackable, it’s possible that some of these are now being unlocked through modern techniques. A legal notice like the one sent via OP_RETURN could be an attempt to mitigate legal liability before actually pursuing these old BTC.
All told, despite a quiet macro calendar this week, crypto markets have no shortage of storylines.
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