The world's largest ever bitcoin transaction has taken place, with just over $1 billion (£802 million) worth of cryptocurrency transferred between accounts.

The single transaction of 94,504 bitcoins represents around 0.5 per cent of all bitcoins currently in existence, and it has left analysts confused by who made it and for what purpose.

The semi-anonymous nature of bitcoin means it is possible to view the transfer on its blockchain – the public ledger that records transactions – but it is not possible to know who made it.

Such a large amount of bitcoin has the potential to crash the cryptocurrency market if it is cashed in for fiat currency. Big sell offs in the past have resulted in flash crashes, with bitcoin losing almost $1,000 from its value in the space of just 24 hours in September 2018 as a result of a major trade.

“Since the advent of bitcoin futures in early 2018, we are now seeing massive market manipulation and suppression by whales and experienced futures traders,” Phillip Nunn, chief executive officer at Wealth Chain Capital, told The Independent at the time.

Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Satoshi Nakamoto creates the first bitcoin block in 2009 On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin is used as a currency for the first time On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins – the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices Lazlo Hanyecz Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Silk Road opens for business Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The first bitcoin ATM appears On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The fall of MtGox The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Would the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's big split On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash REUTERS Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's price sky rockets Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year Reuters

It is not the largest transaction in terms of bitcoin volume, though at bitcoin’s current price of around $10,600 it is by far the largest in terms of value.

In 2011, a transaction of 550,000 bitcoins was recorded on the blockchain, though at the time this amount of cryptocurrency was only worth around $1.6 million.

Cryptocurrency analysts have attempted to trace the bitcoin but have been unable to pin it to a particular individual or group.

Blockchain analysis firm TokenAnalyst discovered that a significant portion of the bitcoin came from addresses registered with Huobi Global, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange.

"$1 billion of bitcoin was transferred in one transaction... Where did that come from?" the firm tweeted. "We took a look and saw that a large percentage of it could be traced to @HuobiGlobal addresses."

A flow chart showing where the bitcoin originated from (TokenAnalyst)

The funds are yet to move since being transferred last week, though small amounts of bitcoin continue to be added to the address.

Theories about who controls the address have been circulating online. They range from an early adopter who decided to consolidate their addresses, to a large company that is stockpiling cryptocurrency in the event of a global financial crash.