According to Deep Tide TechFlow, on December 7, CoinDesk reported that two wallets associated with Casascius physical bitcoins transferred a total of 2,000 bitcoins, worth about $180 million, after being dormant for more than a decade. These bitcoins had remained untouched since 2011 and 2012, when the price of bitcoin was less than $15, compared to nearly $90,000 now.
Casascius physical coins were created by Utah entrepreneur Mike Caldwell in 2011 as tangible collectibles containing embedded private keys, with denominations ranging from 1 to 1,000 BTC. Each coin came with a tamper-evident holographic seal to protect the private key underneath. Due to the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) labeling Caldwell as an unregistered money transmitter, he ceased production of pre-funded coins at the end of 2013.
The specific purpose of this transfer is unclear and could be for sale, internal restructuring, or as a precaution to preserve access. It may also be related to the degradation of physical components, similar to an incident earlier this year where a user claiming to own a 100 BTC Casascius bar reported difficulty importing the key into modern wallets after removing the hologram.
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