A wallet linked to Irish cannabis dealer Clifton Collins has moved 500 $BTC, worth about $41.52 million, to a @Coinbase Prime deposit address, according to on-chain data from Lookonchain. PAN
A wallet linked to Irish cannabis dealer Clifton Collins has moved 500 $BTC, worth about $41.52 million, to a @Coinbase Prime deposit address, according to on-chain data from Lookonchain. PANews reported that the address had been dormant for more than 10 years before the transfer.
The coins belong to a stash of about 6,000 Bitcoin that was long considered unrecoverable after the physical private keys were lost.
Collins is a drug dealer who was sentenced to five years in prison for growing and selling cannabis, Cointelegraph reported, citing the Irish Times. Police said he used proceeds from the operation to buy 6,000 Bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012, spreading the coins across 12 wallets. The access codes were reportedly lost when the paper they were printed on disappeared.
Arkham Intelligence has said that after Collins was jailed in 2017, his landlord sent his belongings to a dump, and that the coins were assumed lost for good, according to Arkham's research.
The purpose of the latest move is unclear. ChainCatcher noted that it is not known why the coins were transferred or whether the private key has been recovered.
Context matters here. Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has said it gained access to wallets in this group with help from Europol's European Cybercrime Centre. Crypto.news reported that the July seizure brought CAB's total to 1,500 BTC, the third 500 BTC recovery from the same cluster this year. That raises the possibility that some recent activity involves assets under official control. Blockchain Echo, in an earlier report on a similar transfer, noted that Lookonchain did not show evidence that Collins personally controlled the sending wallet, and that no official statement accompanied that transaction.
A deposit to Coinbase Prime also does not by itself mean the Bitcoin has been sold. Coinbase Prime is the exchange's platform for institutional clients, offering trading and custody services.
For now, the transfer adds another chapter to one of crypto's best-known lost-key stories. Further movements from the remaining wallets in the cluster would be watched closely by market participants and investigators alike.
PANews: Address belonging to Clifton Collins transfers 500 BTC to Coinbase PrimeCrypto.news: Clifton Collins Bitcoin stash shrinks after new 500 BTC seizureArkham Intelligence: Clifton Collins research
