Large whale movements of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies hardly go unnoticed by the crypto community. That being said, the movement of 142,323 BTC (valued at $1.3 billion) recently did not also go undetected. There are speculations that the transfer could either have been made by Xapo, a crypto wallet provider, or a whale just waiting for the time to dump the asset into the market which could lead to a further price slump.
Crypto Market’s Dip in the Past Few Weeks
The crypto market has experienced a dip in the past two weeks and it’s uncertain if it could get out of the downtrend anytime soon. However, crypto enthusiasts are monitoring the state of things to deduce if a surge is underway or we can go lower.
While at it, Larry Cermak, a crypto enthusiast informed the community on July 29, 2019, that a whale had moved 142,323 BTC valued at $1.3 billion at the time.
Given that transferred amount accounts for 0.8 percent of Bitcoin’s circulating supply, it was enough to cause an uproar in the crypto space. Some users opined that it is Xapo, a crypto wallet provider that was recently acquired by Coinbase who had made the transfer.
A link was made between one of Xapo’s transactions and the whale movement even though the former occurred 18 hours after the huge one was made.
Similarly, Su Zhu, CEO of Three Arrows Capital hinted that the move was actually related to the Xapo/Coinbase custody acquisition. The CEO reportedly said Xapo holds about 700,000 BTC in its custody and as such, it may not come as a surprise that they should be able to move such large funds.
Crypto Users Claim Whale Movement Was Made by Satoshi
That aside, many others who made comments on Cermak’s tweet opined that the transfer could have been made by Satoshi, Bitcoin’s creator finally moving some of his assets. Another user noted that majority of the moved funds had been sitting in wallets since 2015/2016 and were only moved days ago.
On the other hand, a number of users were of the belief that the act was carried out by a whale who could possibly dump it into the market when we least expect. If that happens, then it could impact negatively on Bitcoin’s price by dragging it further down below the $9k level its currently trading at.
An instance of this is the case of May 17, 2019, where 5,000 Bitcoins were dumped in the market on Bitstamp, a Luxembourg-based digital currency exchange. While it may have been insignificant compared to the recent whale movement, it was still able to trigger a flash crash in Bitcoin’s price. Bitcoin which was trading well above $7,000 crashed to $6,100 in an hour.
