The $9 Billion Question
The ghost of a massive 80,000 BTC sell-off has returned to haunt the market. During Galaxy Digital’s Q4 2025 earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Mike Novogratz addressed the colossal $9 billion liquidation executed by the firm in July 2025. While Novogratz cited “estate planning” as the official motive for the unnamed client, the commentary has inadvertently reignited a specific, dormant anxiety: the “Quantum Threat.”
Bitcoin struggled to find footing as the narrative circulated, sliding 4.8% to $74,589 in early European trading. The sell-off reflects a market less concerned with the past sale and more terrified of its implications.
The “Satoshi-Era” Vulnerability
The devil is in the technical details. The client is confirmed to be a “Satoshi-era” miner, meaning the coins were likely mined in 2009 or 2010. In Bitcoin’s infancy, mining rewards were often paid to Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) scripts, which, unlike modern addresses, expose the raw public key on the blockchain.
This exposure makes these specific coins the “low-hanging fruit” for a theoretical quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm to derive private keys. While Galaxy maintains the sale was a standard exit, the sheer scale of the liquidation, exiting the position entirely rather than borrowing against it, is being interpreted by bearish technicians as a hedge against future cryptographic obsolescence.
“It’s like distributing an IPO… I think that’s the part of the cycle we’re in right now. Somehow that fever broke and you started seeing some selling.” Mike Novogratz, Galaxy Digital CEO
Institutional Context: Estate Planning or Exit Strategy?
Galaxy’s trading desk absorbed the massive flow in Q3 2025 without crashing the market, using a combination of OTC maneuvers and gradual exchange deposits. However, Novogratz’s comment that the “fever broke” for long-term holders suggests a shift in psychology among the ultra-wealthy early adopters.
The “Quantum” narrative remains speculative, but in a risk-off environment, perception is reality. If the earliest guardians of the network are cashing out $9 billion checks rather than holding for the hyper-bitcoinization event, the market is forced to ask: What do they know that we don’t?
