Some very old Bitcoin just moved — and it’s tied to one of crypto’s longest-running cases.
Wallets linked to Aleksey Bilyuchenko sent about 1,300 BTC, worth roughly $114 million, to unknown platforms over the past week, according to Arkham analyst Emmett Gallic.
What stands out is that this is only part of the stash. The same wallets still hold around 4,100 Bitcoin, valued at close to $360 million, and Gallic says roughly 2,300 BTC tied to Bilyuchenko have already been sold.
Bilyuchenko’s name goes back to the early days of Bitcoin.
U.S. prosecutors say he was involved with BTC-e, an exchange that once handled massive volumes before being shut down in 2017.
At the time, BTC-e was widely used but operated outside regulatory oversight.
Authorities also link Bilyuchenko to the Mt. Gox collapse. They allege that between 2011 and 2014, he and an associate helped steal roughly 647,000 Bitcoin — most of what Mt. Gox customers had on the platform.
According to prosecutors, those coins didn’t move all at once. Instead, they were slowly shuffled through exchange accounts, shell companies, and offshore banks.
One alleged tactic involved a fake advertising deal with a U.S.-based Bitcoin broker, which was used to move millions of dollars overseas and quietly convert stolen Bitcoin.
Bilyuchenko is now facing U.S. charges related to money laundering and running an unlicensed financial operation. The recent transfers don’t change the case, but they do show that wallets tied to crypto’s earliest scandals are still active — and still being closely watched.
