Elon Musk's SpaceX moves another $31 million of its bitcoin stash to new wallet: Arkham

Elon Musk's SpaceX moved another 281 BTC ($31.3 million) late Oct. 29, continuing a pattern of likely custody consolidation this month, according to analysts at Lookonchain, citing Arkham data.

The transaction marks the fifth such transfer this month, totaling 4,337 BTC ($471.7 million), carried out via institutional custody platform Coinbase Prime, per Arkham labeling.

On Oct. 21, SpaceX moved 2,495 BTC worth around $268.5 million in two transactions — its first tracked transfers since late July. While the purpose was not publicly disclosed by the company, analysts said at the time that it may just be part of its wallet reorganization, as some of its past transfers were later labeled as SpaceX's interactions with a Coinbase Prime custody address.

On Oct. 24, SpaceX then transferred another 1,561 BTC ($171.9 million) over two transactions. While some of the transfers suggest funds were being moved from legacy bitcoin addresses starting "1" to more modern formats starting "bc1q," the last two transfers appear to be further consolidation between the newer address formats.

Starting with a 1, these legacy Pay-to-PubKey-Hash (P2PKH) addresses are the oldest style of bitcoin addresses. After that came Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) addresses starting with 3, then native SegWit (P2WPKH) addresses starting with bc1q, and finally Taproot (P2TR) addresses starting with bc1p — the most up-to-date format.

Musk first confirmed that both Tesla and SpaceX own bitcoin in July 2021. By the end of 2022, SpaceX had reportedly reduced its holdings by around 70%, possibly prompted by a market-wide shock caused by the meltdown of the Terra ecosystem that May, the collapse of FTX that November, and the subsequent domino effect.

Arkham claimed to identify SpaceX's bitcoin holdings in March 2024, tracking 8,285 BTC across 28 addresses. That total figure currently stands at 7,258 BTC (approximately $799 million at current prices), according to Arkham's SpaceX tracking , though that may not reflect some of the latest transfers if still in SpaceX's possession. Indeed, of the October transfers, 1,027 BTC has not yet been relabeled as a SpaceX Coinbase Prime address, a discrepancy that may simply reflect pending label updates.

Tesla also sold off a bulk of its bitcoin holdings in 2022, though it still holds 11,509 BTC, currently worth $1.3 billion, according to Arkham data .