Supply · Oct 19, 2026

94% of old XBT on the move is just a copy of a bitcoin transaction

By xbt.live · 4 minute read

Pre-fork XBT moves: copies vs deliberate

About 20 million XBT were inherited from bitcoin at the fork, and some of it moves every day. We checked who's moving it. Over the last two weeks, about 94% of the pre-fork XBT that moved went in transactions that also confirmed on bitcoin. In other words, most "old XBT" on the move is bitcoin holders moving their BTC, with their XBT copied along.

Bar chart: of 5,128 pre-fork XBT moved in our sample, 94% was in transactions also confirmed on bitcoin and 6% moved on XBT alone

What we found

We checked every 20th block from block 975,968 to 977,965, about Oct 5 to 19: 100 blocks and every transaction in them moving at least 1 XBT. For each one, we looked up whether its coins were created before the fork, and whether the exact same transaction also confirmed on bitcoin.

Pre-fork XBT moved (sample)	Transactions	XBT	Share
Same transaction also confirmed on bitcoin	680	~4,810	94%
Moved on XBT only	17	~315	6%
Total	697	~5,130

Scaled up to every block in those two weeks, that's roughly 100,000 pre-fork XBT moved, or about 7,000 a day. Only around 450 a day of it moved on XBT alone. The XBT-only figure comes from a handful of transactions, three of them over 70 XBT each, so treat it as a rough size, not a precise number.

Why most of it is a copy

XBT and bitcoin share every coin from before Aug 8, 2026, at the same addresses with the same keys. When someone with pre-fork coins sends bitcoin from a normal wallet, the signed transaction is also valid on XBT, and it gets copied over. Their XBT moves to the same new address as their bitcoin. About 95% of all XBT transactions are copies like this.

That means most of this "old XBT on the move" isn't anyone choosing to sell. The owners still control those coins, and many probably don't know they moved at all.

The deliberate movers

The 6% that moved only on XBT is the flow that matters for supply: holders splitting and spending their inherited XBT on purpose. At roughly 450 XBT a day, it's sizable next to the about 1,400 XBT that trades on exchanges in a day, though moved isn't the same as sold.

Only 4 of those 17 deliberate transactions used XBT's own replay-protected signature. The rest used ordinary bitcoin-style signatures and simply weren't sent on bitcoin. That works, but it's riskier. How to split safely

Supply in perspective

Inherited at the fork: about 20.07 million XBT, all spendable since Aug 8.
Deliberate moves of inherited coins: roughly 450 XBT a day lately.
Miners' pre-lock rewards: about 72% already moved, about 10,200 XBT not. The miner analysis
Locked mining rewards: about 20,250 XBT unlocking around Nov 1. Lock Pressure

If you hold pre-fork bitcoin

Moving your bitcoin with a normal wallet probably moved your XBT too, to the same new address. You still own it. Check any address with our XBT address checker, and read the seven checks before trusting any tool with a pre-fork seed.

Check an address Pre-fork coins moved chart

Method: every 20th block from 975,968 to 977,965 on mempool.guide; all transactions spending at least 1 XBT; funding heights checked for up to 25 inputs each; matches checked on mempool.space, Oct 19, 2026. Transactions that confirmed on both chains are counted as copies whichever chain they were first sent on. Estimates are rounded. Moved is not the same as sold. Not financial advice.

Have an XBT story? Write for xbt.live.

Life support

So the patient was moved to the emergency room. In August, the SHA-256 miners left on their own chain, and the nodes enforcing BIP-110's rules kept going without them. At the end of the month, the rule-keeping chain switched its mining to BLAKE2b so the captured SHA-256 hash couldn't take it over. That chain is XBT. The full story is in How Bitcoin kept its rules and moved to BLAKE2b.

Patients on life support don't look healthy, and XBT doesn't either. About 102 XBT buy one BTC. It has had three bear markets in six weeks. That's what a rescue looks like from the outside. The people in the ER right now, the node runners, the miners, the builders shipping wallets and pools every week, are doing the work while the outcome is anything but certain. If the patient makes it, they're the ones who saved it.

The strangest part: you already own it

If you held bitcoin before Aug 8, 2026, you hold XBT. Same coins, same addresses, same keys. The proof of work that secured your coins for 17 years secures them on both chains, because the history is identical up to block 961,631. Every UTXO that existed before the split exists on XBT. The XBT you hold cost you exactly what your BTC cost you.

Since the split, the two histories have gone different ways. XBT's blocks follow BIP-110's rules: less data that isn't money, a cleaner chain going forward. Not sure what you hold? Check an address.

Two places at once

The body is still on the old chain: the brand, the network effect, the exchange listings, the ticker everyone knows. That doesn't disappear overnight, and we won't pretend it does.

But the thing that made Bitcoin worth caring about was never the brand. It was the idea: money that no state, no company and no small group of operators can change on users without their consent. That idea now lives on the chain whose users enforced their rules when it mattered. The body stayed. The soul moved.

Bitcoin was always a quiet way to separate money from the state. It still is. It just lives somewhere new.

Opinion. Not financial advice. XBT trades on thin markets and can lose most of its value quickly. Price figures as of the evening of Oct 10, 2026 (US Eastern).