Binance recently made an unexpected move by transferring 75,177 BTC, worth over $4.7 billion, from a cold wallet to two other wallet addresses, with the purpose still unclear.
According to on-chain data, at around 04:30 PM on August 27, 2024, a wallet marked as a cold wallet owned by Binance executed an unusual transaction, moving 75,177 Bitcoin, equivalent to approximately $4.7 billion, out of the wallet.
This Bitcoin was split into two transactions as follows:
- The first transaction transferred 30,000 BTC, worth over $1.8 billion, to Binance’s hot wallet.
- The remaining 45,177 BTC was sent to an unidentified wallet address labeled “3PXB…GKoc.”
Just In: On August 27 at 17:29 UTC+8, Binance Bitcoin cold wallet was suspected to have made internal adjustments. A Binance cold wallet holding 75,177 BTC transferred 30,000 BTC to Binance hot wallet and 45,177 BTC to another address 3PXB…GKoc. https://t.co/JFSD211zai
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 27, 2024
Binance has not yet provided any explanation for this action, causing concern among the investor community as the ownership of the 45,177 Bitcoin (worth over $2.9 billion) remains unclear. Investors are worried that a potential “sell-off” of this BTC could negatively impact the market.
However, amid these concerns, some on-chain researchers have suggested that this might simply be an internal transfer of assets between Binance’s cold wallets.
For example, the account “MNRaju_crypto” shared a screenshot from BitInfoCharts, asserting that both wallet addresses receiving the 75,177 Bitcoin are cold wallets belonging to Binance. However, the wallet address “3PXB…GKoc” is newly created, and therefore has not yet been labeled by other data tools, leading to confusion in the community.
Large and high-value transactions involving Bitcoin or Ethereum always attract significant attention from investors, as they often lead to speculation about their purpose and potential market impact.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 30,000 #BTC (1,887,131,798 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Binancehttps://t.co/wYaLQvifIY
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) August 27, 2024
In the past, investors likely have not forgotten the “nightmare” when the German government sold an unprecedented amount of Bitcoin, generating $2.9 billion, which deeply affected the crypto market during June – July 2024.
Additionally, alongside the German government, the U.S. authorities and the “ghost” of Mt.Gox also continuously moved large amounts of Bitcoin to exchanges. Although the purpose of these moves was initially unclear, the reason was only revealed when the crypto market “bled”—these entities had just conducted a massive Bitcoin sell-off!
In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) has seen a slight adjustment, dropping around 2% in value from $63,935 to $62,300, after reaching the $65,000 mark following the FED’s rate cut announcement on August 24.
