Coinbase received another major Bitcoin deposit on Tuesday, with 500 BTC transferred from wallets linked to convicted Irish drug trafficker Clifton Collins. This latest batch, valued at approximately $41 million, marks the fifth substantial transfer of Collins’s Bitcoin holdings in 2026.
Fifth transfer from legacy Bitcoin stash
The moved coins trace back to a legacy wallet initialized on January 23, 2016, which had remained inactive for over a decade. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham connected the latest transaction to Collins and identified it as the fifth such movement from his holdings this year.
Arkham recorded that the first 500 BTC from Collins’s wallets were sent to Coinbase Custody in March, when Bitcoin traded around $35 million per batch. Subsequent transfers followed: $38 million worth on May 19, another similar-sized move on July 2, and a $39.5 million transfer on August 28. With Tuesday’s transfer, a total of 2,500 BTC has left Collins’s addresses since January.
Irish police seized the assets in March but have not confirmed conducting this week’s transfer. Arkham analysts suggested law enforcement likely orchestrated the move, though no agency officially acknowledged responsibility.
| Date | Amount (BTC) | Destination | USD Value (at time) |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 2026 | 500 | Coinbase Custody | $35 million |
| May 19, 2026 | 500 | New address | $38 million |
| July 2, 2026 | 500 | Coinbase Custody | Not specified |
| Aug 28, 2026 | 500 | Same as July batch | $39.5 million |
| Oct 20, 2026 | 500 | Coinbase | $41 million |
After the most recent batch, just under 3,500 BTC valued at nearly $288 million remain in Collins’s addresses.
Background: The fate of Clifton Collins’s Bitcoin
Clifton Collins, an Irish national convicted of drug trafficking, reportedly used proceeds from cannabis operations in 2011 and 2012 to acquire roughly 6,000 BTC, spreading them across 12 separate wallets containing 500 BTC each.
Collins stored the wallets’ seed phrases on a single sheet of A4 paper, hidden inside a fishing rod case. In 2017, following his arrest, the landlord disposed of his belongings—including the fishing rod case. The keys are believed to have ended up in a County Galway landfill, leading to long-standing assumptions that the coins were irretrievable.
Despite the presumed loss, law enforcement gained access to at least one wallet earlier this year. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau reported working with Europol to take control of a cryptocurrency wallet containing 500 BTC deemed criminal proceeds, though the exact method of gaining access remains undisclosed.
The Irish Garda did not specify how investigators gained entry to the wallet, leaving questions about the possibility of defective key generation software and whether the same vulnerability could be used to recover additional wallets.
Coinbase Custody, a secure crypto storage service often used by government agencies to hold seized assets, has received several of the batches linked to Collins’s holdings.
Mini dictionary: Arkham is a blockchain intelligence platform that provides tools and data for tracing crypto transactions and identifying wallet owners, often assisting law enforcement and market analysts with on-chain investigations.
Old Bitcoin wallets reawaken in October
Collins’s case is part of a larger pattern of dormant Bitcoin wallets becoming active in October. So far this month, 24 long-inactive wallets have transferred a combined 1,756.815 BTC, amounting to more than $145 million.
One of these wallets, originating in September 2013, moved 411.45 BTC worth around $33.4 million. This wallet is named in the ongoing “Noah Doe” suit in New York, which aims to have idle Bitcoin wallets—potentially containing nearly 3.8 million BTC—declared abandoned property. However, plaintiffs do not possess the necessary private keys to access these funds.
Efforts are underway in US courts to address the status of inactive crypto wallets, but without private keys, the assets remain beyond reach despite their immense value.
