$114 Million: 18,000 Bitcoin (BTC) Shifted To BitMEX-linked Wallet
Approximately 18,000 Bitcoins (BTC) were recently transferred to a wallet believed to be linked to BitMEX, a large cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform. The total value of these coins is currently over $114 million, according to data from CryptoCompare. Seventeen different crypto wallets were involved in this large BTC transfer, with the first transaction taking place at 4:50 AM New York time. While only 10 BTC were moved to the BitMEX-associated wallet in the first transaction, 16 other crypto wallets transferred a total of 17,990 BTC to BitMEX’s wallet in less than half an hour after the first BTC transfer. Soon after the large transfer of coins to the wallet known to belong to BitMEX, a number of Twitter users speculated that the crypto trading platform may be involved in market manipulation. Notably, the massive consolidation of bitcoins to BitMEX’s wallet occurred just a few hours before the flagship cryptocurrency’s price recovered from its drop below $6,000.Although many crypto exchanges have been accused of attempting to manipulate market prices, in this case it seems quite unlikely because the 18,000 BTC consolidated to BitMEX’s wallet accounts for only 0.1% of all bitcoins currently in circulation.Oftentimes, however, crypto “whales”, such as the Mt Gox trustee, are known to consolidate a very large number of coins to a crypto address right before selling them. As Crypto Globe reported in March, Mt Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi had sold $400 million worth of BTC, which many believed had a significant impact on crypto market prices.
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