An unknown individual or entity has removed 107 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $8.5 million, from circulation by sending the assets to a specialized address. The transaction, which occurred after the funds had been dormant for over 12 years, has sparked various theories within the crypto community. This was reported by Cointelegraph.com reporting .
According to Galaxy Research, a total of 107 BTC was transferred on Monday from five Bitcoin wallets to an old "burn" address starting with "11111". Since the private keys for this address do not exist, the funds sent to it cannot be recovered or spent. According to the Arkham platform, the total amount of Bitcoin at this address reached 807 (approximately $59 million) following this operation.
This event was recorded as one of the largest Bitcoin burns of 2026. Notably, these coins were purchased 12 years ago when the price of Bitcoin was below $600. Since then, the asset's value has increased by 12,700%. Because the Bitcoin network lacks an automatic burn mechanism like Ethereum or BNB, coin destruction is only possible by sending them to unrecoverable addresses.
Analysts are putting forward various hypotheses regarding the reasons for this strange move. Galaxy Research suggested it could be an attempt to reduce tax liabilities or erase traces of illicit activity. The possibility of a technical error caused by an artificial intelligence (AI) agent is also being considered.
Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas did not rule out scenarios involving a "rogue AI" or theft. Meanwhile, Coinbase representative Conor Grogan emphasized that this was most likely a mistake made during a transfer between cold storage wallets of one of the exchanges.
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