The long-dormant bitcoin stash from the defunct BTC-e crypto exchange has been moving on the blockchain for the past two weeks, an anonymous member of a Russian Telegram channel noticed on Thursday.
The wallet received 3,299 BTC from the known wallet of BTC-e in November 2022, in the first transaction the BTC-e wallet sent since 2017. Back then the wallet sent 10,000 bitcoin ($165 million) to two unidentified recipients. On March 14 one of the receiving wallets started moving funds again, eventually sending small parts to exchanges and over-the counter (OTC) trading desks, presumably to cash out the bitcoin.
Blockchain analytics firm Crystal Blockchain confirmed to Russian-language crypto website Forklog that smaller parts of those 3,299 BTC have been sent to exchanges KuCoin and MEXC, as well as to an OTC desk named BTC2pm.
According to the on-chain data, around 2.75 BTC landed on KuCoin in two transactions via a number of intermediary wallets, and 1 BTC went to MEXC.
CoinDesk requested comments from KuCoin and MEXC but had not heard back by press time.