Over the past few weeks a handful of whales (a reference to individuals and organizations that hold large amounts of cryptocurrency) have been shuffling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins. These large amounts of digital currency are being siphoned into unknown exchanges and wallets.
The findings were initially discovered by Whale Alert, a “whale watchdog” account on Twitter. Initial exchanges began early Thursday evening, when someone transferred nearly 10,000 Bitcoins ($80,331,150 USD) to the first unknown wallet. The wallet holder then sent the same amount, which had appreciated by $300,000, back to Binance.
Within 24 hours, there were $100 million worth of Bitcoin trades that occurred between crypto exchange platforms and several mysterious wallets. Among the major shifts were $40 million of BTC from Poloniex and an unknown wallet, $16 million between an unknown wallet and Bitfinex, and $10 million from Xapo to an unknown wallet.
Because the Bitcoin market has remained somewhat stable over the past month, it’s unclear why such large amounts of money were moved in such short time periods, and why whales have been trading big in a stagnant market (other than a slight nosedive of $2,000 in September). However, these exchanges have caused a bit of a ripple effect in the Bitcoin ecosystem, which accounts for slight ups and downs in the Bitcoin price.
Bitcoin has become a buzzword in finance, and with the growth of DevOps and platforms like JFrog that support its infrastructure, it will continue to remain an integral part of the finance and crypto world. Essentially, this creates a give and take relationship, as blockchain helps protect DevOps as well. Many companies-from Amazon to Google to Netflix-have spearheaded their own DevOps efforts to lead production and development.
Already, Bitcoin has disrupted several industries. For instance, in real estate, Bitcoin and blockchain offers a much higher level of transparency and allows the transaction process to eliminate much of the middlemen, which will ultimately reduce cost for buyers and sellers. The finance industry will also see a reduction in costs; analysts predict it will save the finance industry $15 to $20 billion in infrastructure costs by 2022, and with a shared ledger system, it’s also poised to increase security (another contributor to saved costs).
The high trading trend appears to have continued since it began. Not long after, 5,000 Bitcoin ($41,223,862) were traded between Bitstamp and an unknown wallet.
Interestingly enough, back in September, $1,018,147,922 were exchanged between two unknown wallets (94,504 BTC), making it one of the biggest exchanges in crypto history. Although details of the exchange have not been officially revealed, many Twitter users suggested Bakkt, an ICE-backed exchange with a custody service called Bakkt Warehouse, was behind the exchange. After all, Bakkt has taken an ambitious step to disrupt the cryptocurrency custody market-a sector led by the crypto platform Coinbase. In early September, the company announced the launch of its physically-delivered Bitcoin futures, which was officially launched Sept. 23.
These custody providers use a combination of different hot and cold storage techniques, and are designed to alleviate fears among investors through the prevention of wallet thefts and rectification of misplaced private keys. In short, crypto custodians create an additional barrier of security for regular wallet systems like Bitwallet.
Mammoth-sized companies like Coinbase and Bakkt are also gaining traction because its regulatory-compliant design; investors that have assets of $150,000 are required to place those holdings under the control of a “qualified custodian.”
According to CoinTelegraph, crypto custodians were purchasing between $200 million to $400 million of crypto per week, and regular acquisitions have become the norm. Today, $15 million from an unknown wallet was also exchanged to Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Though these amounts are public, it continues to remain a go-to tactic for anonymity.
