What happened: An anonymous Bitcoin BTC/USD whale just transferred $158,342,542 worth of Bitcoin off Coinbase, and the investor then sent these funds to Gemini.
You can view more details about the transaction here.
Why it matters: Bitcoin “Whales” (investors who own $10 million or more in BTC) typically send cryptocurrency between exchanges when looking for liquidity. If a whale were to sell all of their Bitcoin on one exchange, there would be a high price impact. That is, the investor would push down the price of Bitcoin on that exchange significantly.
Instead, the whale can distribute the funds across exchanges to be able to have sufficient liquidity. Of course, we don’t know for sure whether this Bitcoin wallet is transferring the funds to sell, as this is just speculation. Another reason investors transfer Bitcoin across exchanges is for security preferences.
The best way to secure Bitcoin is through holding it on a hardware wallet, which can’t be done through holding digital assets on an exchange. However, certain exchanges, like Coinbase, hold investors’ funds in hardware wallets for them, adding an extra level of security for your digital assets.
Price Action: Bitcoin is down -2% in the past 24 hours.
See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin
Public Blockchain data sourced from Whale Alerts Twitter.
This article was generated by Benzinga’s automated content engine and reviewed by an editor.
