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According to Arkham Intelligence, the bitcoin transferred by Tesla last week was likely just relocated to newer wallets, but the company still holds control over the funds. Arkham revealed that the assets are now spread across seven separate wallets.
Arkham Confirms Tesla’s Bitcoin Stash Remains Untouched—Spacex Holds $550M
The crypto community buzzed last week when Tesla moved 11,509 BTC to new wallets. What’s especially interesting is that these funds weren’t transferred to the more modern bitcoin address formats like P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) or Bech32 (native Segwit). Instead, they ended up in fresh legacy addresses, specifically P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) addresses.
“We believe that the Tesla wallet movements that we reported on last week were wallet rotations with the Bitcoin still owned by Tesla,” Arkham Intelligence stated on X. Tesla moved their entire balance of 11,509 BTC ($776.9M) to new wallets.”
Arkham added:
The bitcoin has been split between 7 wallets holding 1100 and 2200 [bitcoin]. All holding wallets received test transactions and all but one hold a round number of [bitcoin].
The funds have stayed put in these wallets and haven’t budged since. As of Oct. 23, Tesla’s bitcoin holdings are worth $765.22 million, and it’s widely believed that the stash is secured by Coinbase Prime Custody. Joining Tesla in the bitcoin game, Elon Musk’s Spacex also holds a sizable amount of BTC. At the time of writing, Spacex’s cache sits at 8,285 BTC, valued at $550.87 million in USD value.
Tesla‘s decision to rotate its bitcoin holdings into new wallets suggests a strategic move, potentially aimed at enhancing security without altering its position. The use of legacy addresses, rather than more modern options, indicates a deliberate choice that may align with the company’s internal policies.
With significant reserves held by both Tesla and Spacex, these assets reflect continued confidence in bitcoin as a store of value. Whether these moves foreshadow further adjustments remains to be seen, but the company’s commitment to holding substantial amounts of bitcoin seems clear.
Writer’s Take: The key takeaway from this story is simple: just because bitcoin gets transferred doesn’t necessarily mean it was sold.