Over $5 Billion In Bitcoin And Ethereum Moved From Cold Wallets Amid China Crackdown
September 28 2021 - 1:00PM
NEWSBTC
China continued its crackdown on crypto, leading to massive amounts
of bitcoin and Ethereum being moved from exchanges. Immense
pressure from Chinese central banks following the latest iteration
of the China crypto ban has seen exchanges suspending operations in
the region. In light of this, large amounts of crypto are being
moved from exchange wallets to presumably safer wallets. The
transactions are thought to be going to cold wallet storage. Crypto
crackdowns in the country caused a surge in USDT sell-offs against
the Yuan as users tried to get rid of their crypto holdings before
the ban takes full effect. The latest release by the Peoples Bank
of China targets over-the-counter activities like those carried out
on Huobi and OKEx exchanges and declared that changing fiat to
crypto or crypto-to-crypto was now regarded as an illegal activity
in the country. Related Reading | Billionaire Mike Novogratz
Says He’s “Not Nervous” About Crypto Sell-Off $3.1 Billion in
Bitcoin and $2.4 Billion In Ethereum Moved After Huobi announced it
was going to retire Mainland China’s active user accounts, the
exchange had begun to move funds. The exchange had moved a total of
$3.1 billion worth of BTC on Sunday. The activity was flagged by
btcparser which had flagged the initial transfer of 72,999 bitcoins
being moved from Huobi’s wallets. Subsequent transfers were then
made in 2,000 BTC increments. 1,800 bitcoins then went to a single
address and the rest got split into small wallets. This strikes as
odd but could possibly be the exchange moving the funds in the way
they deem the safest. Huobi exchange moves 800K ETH | Source: Whale
Alert Related Reading | JPMorgan Analysts Say That Big Money
Are Dumping Bitcoin For Ethereum The Ethereum transfers took a
different route. Wallets that had been flagged as belonging to the
Huobi Exchange then began to move Ethereum into unknown wallets. By
the time the transfers were done, 800K ETH had been transferred. A
total of eight Ethereum transactions were made, each carrying 100K
in ETH worth over $285 million on each transaction. Adding up to a
total of $2.4 billion in ETH moved to unknown wallets. Exchanges
Retiring Chinese User Accounts Exchanges, following the release of
the latest ban, responded by explaining that they would begin
retiring user accounts. The process was meant to happen gradually
in order to ensure that users’ funds remained safe. Mainland China
user accounts are scheduled to be retired on December 31, 2021, the
last day of the year. This gives investors roughly three months to
put their crypto affairs in order. But despite this long time
frame, the rush to get rid of crypto holdings saw price quotes for
USDT drop to as low as 6.12 Yuan per USDT. This is not the first
time that China has banned crypto actives in the country. And every
time one of these bans was announced, it has had a negative effect
on the market and the latest ban has been no different. The
announcement saw a crash in prices across the crypto market.
Although the market has since recovered. While the effects of the
crash linger on. ETH price down following crackdown | Source:
ETHUSD on TradingView.com Featured image from DigitalTokens.io,
chart from TradingView.com
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