Last updated on May 3rd, 2024 at 08:17 pm
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again conducted a high-value cryptocurrency transfer; this time, it is a $14.9 million USD Coin (USDC) transaction to cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.
This transaction occurred on October 16 and was tracked by blockchain analytics firm PeckShield. It identified Buterin’s wallet, “vitalik.eth,” as the source of this transfer. The transaction was independently verified using the Ethereum block explorer Etherscan.
#PeckShieldAlert #vitalik.eth haas transferred ~15M $USDC (Multisig Contract 0xf207…D5a3) to #Gemini pic.twitter.com/6FZGKLKg9Z
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) October 17, 2023
Crypto data provider Lookonchain also found that Buterin had also moved around $500,000 worth of ETH to Coinbase just three days before this Gemini transfer.
vitalik.eth received 14.93M $USDC from #Kanro 4 days ago and then deposited it into #Gemini yesterday before the first surge of $BTC.#Vitalik also deposited 500K $USDC into #Coinbase 2 days ago.
What did he do with the $USDC?https://t.co/o3u5JjjapUhttps://t.co/Z69WG0xuNP pic.twitter.com/dwTt7tzHp8
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 17, 2023
These transactions are part of a series of deposits by Buterin into centralized exchanges over the past few months. In September, he made several transfers totaling over $3.9 million, as revealed by on-chain data. Notable among these was a $600,000 transfer of 400 ETH to Coinbase on September 24. In August, Buterin sent 600 ETH worth around $1 million to an exchange, as observed from wallet activity
However, Buterin has not publicly explained the reasons behind these transfers. It’s important to mention that these actions have coincided with the ongoing bearish sentiment in the broader cryptocurrency market, which has persisted for over a year now.
While these transactions by Buterin didn’t significantly impact the market price of ETH, they are reminiscent of a high-value transaction by Binance on November 28, 2022. Binance sent a substantial amount of Bitcoin (127,351 BTC), equivalent to over $2 million, to an unknown wallet. This transaction, unlike Buterin’s, sparked concerns in the cryptocurrency community. The move triggered a FUD rally as some crypto community members noted that Binance moves an entire fortune’s worth of BTC in a single transaction.
Despite the activity from Buterin and the broader cryptocurrency market’s bearish sentiment, ETH’s market price remained relatively stable. In the four hours following these transactions, ETH experienced a minor drop of less than 1%, based on CoinGecko pricing data.
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