Did Hackers Trigger Galaxy Digital’s Shock $9 Billion Bitcoin Fire Sale?

Galaxy Digital just dumped $9 billion in BTC—and the crypto world is screaming 'exit scam' or 'hack job.'

Was it a strategic move or a digital heist? Let's dissect the carnage.

The whale move no one saw coming

When a firm this big offloads Bitcoin at scale, markets shudder. Galaxy's sell-off vaporized liquidity faster than a DeFi rug pull. Timing? Suspiciously quiet—no press release, no CEO victory lap. Just cold, hard blockchain receipts.

Forensic analysts are already tracing the coins. Early patterns suggest either:
- A panic sell before regulatory hammer drops
- Sophisticated treasury rebalancing (bullish hopium)
- Or the nightmare scenario: compromised keys

Meanwhile, Bitcoin maximalists are smugly recycling their 'not your keys...' mantras. Traders? Too busy calculating how much lower BTC can go before their leverage gets wrecked.

One thing's certain: in crypto, $9 billion doesn't just vanish without someone getting rich—or getting robbed. And as usual, the 'smart money' forgot to send retail the memo. (Classic Wall Street playbook: privatize gains, socialize losses.)

Galaxy Digital announced on July 25, 2025 that it had sold over 80,000 Bitcoin (BTC USD) worth about $9 billion on behalf of a “Satoshi-era investor.”

The firm said the transaction was part of the client’s “broader estate planning strategy”. According to Galaxy, the coins came from an unnamed early adopter who held them for more than a decade.

Blockchain investigators immediately traced the moved coins to addresses active in 2011, when the defunct MyBitcoin wallet service was hacked.

The striking overlap has led analysts to wonder if Galaxy effectively helped cash out the original MyBitcoin thief or its founder.

CryptoQuant CEO Links Sale to 2011 MyBitcoin Hack

Blockchain analytics CEO Ki Young Ju publicly flagged the MyBitcoin connection. He noted on social media that the wallets for these 80k BTC “had been dormant since April 2011” – just before MyBitcoin’s collapse.

Ju speculated the coins might belong to MyBitcoin’s attacker or to its anonymous founder, Tom Williams.

“It likely belongs to the hacker or the anonymous founder known as Tom Williams,” Ju tweeted, adding that Galaxy “bought the #Bitcoin from them” but it was unclear if Galaxy had performed any forensic checks.

Ju’s theory echoes a broader theory by Arkham Intelligence that all 80,000 BTC originated in April–May 2011 and only moved on July 4–5, 2025 into eight new addresses.

Galaxy itself has not endorsed the hacker theory. Its press release and on-chain announcement simply call the seller a “long-term holder” and early bitcoin adopter.

Galaxy confirmed only that it “facilitated the move” of the coins, emphasizing the client’s estate-planning motives and giving no details on the coins’ origin.

In short, Galaxy told investors it managed a record sale, but it did not disclose whether it did any extra due diligence on the coins’ history.

Despite the headlines, Bitcoin’s price barely budged on the news. On July 25, after the sale was announced, BTC traded around $117,300, roughly 1% lower than the day before.

That level was actually above its multi-week low of just under $115,000 seen during the same week.

By July 26, the price was about $117,700, about +1.2% in 24 hours. In other words, the $9 billion liquidation caused only a brief dip; markets quickly rebounded.

The 2011 MyBitcoin Heist: Background

MyBitcoin was an early custodial wallet service that shut down amid scandal in 2011.

In August 2011 its founder “Tom Williams” posted a signed statement saying hackers had broken into MyBitcoin and stolen a large portion of its bitcoins.

At the time, the lost coins were reported as about $250,000 worth (several thousand BTC by then prices).

Users later estimated the site had held far more – on the order of tens of thousands of BTC – before the disappearance.

All that remained of MyBitcoin were unanswered questions. The incident shut down the service and launched years of internet sleuthing.

No public law-enforcement resolution ever emerged from the episode. Today, those long-dormant MyBitcoin balances WOULD be worth billions.

Do Enforcement Actions Apply

The recent transfer of 80,000 BTC echoes the old hack in another way. Analysts note that the moved coins came from a Satoshi-era wallet, active before MyBitcoin collapsed.

If Ju’s theory is correct, either MyBitcoin’s alleged hacker or its reclusive founder held onto these coins until last week. In that sense, Galaxy’s trade could be seen as an exit by one of crypto’s earliest insiders.

So far, no regulator has publicly commented on the transfer. The Coin Republic found no official statement from agencies like the SEC, DOJ or FinCEN regarding the 80,000 BTC sale.

Historically, the MyBitcoin incident predated major crypto regulation, so there were no prior enforcement actions tied to MyBitcoin’s funds.

In the current episode, Galaxy’s sale was structured as a large private trade. Regulators generally have not weighed in on that process.

In short, aside from media and analyst scrutiny, the transaction appears to have attracted no formal regulatory attention.