Whales Are Behind The Current Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Pump

On the 16th of February 2023, Lookonchain posted on Twitter saying that Whales are possibly behind the sudden Bitcoin and Ethereum price pump.

1/ Why did the price of $BTC/$ETH suddenly rise today?

We found that several funds/institutions poured nearly $1.6B into the crypto market since Feb 10!👇 pic.twitter.com/WRaSv4YtgP

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 16, 2023

Attached to the tweet was a chart depicting the rise of Bitcoin. Lookonchain stated that it was discovered that several funds amounting to nearly $1.6B had been poured into the crypto market since the 10th of February, 2023, by unknown institutions.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are undoubtedly the most talked about assets in the world that have dominated the crypto space since their first appearance. However, the volatility of the market hasn’t been easy on both assets, as their prices experienced a tumultuous ride for the better part of last year. 

The beginning of this year is looking more optimistic, but the crypto community cannot help but wonder what or who could be behind the sudden price pump.

Further analysis of deposits and withdrawals on Circle from February 10 till date, it was discovered that $1.6B USDC was withdrawn from Circle by several institutions, and only 0.2B $USDC was deposited. 

However, these funds did not stop pouring in, even after BTC and ETH experienced a downhill incline. Lookonchain further added that a certain mysterious address moved 155 million USDC from Circle and transferred to exchanges since February. 

Attached to all this information are screenshots from Etherscan, which is a block explorer for the Ethereum blockchain that provides information about each transaction and block, such as the hash and timestamp. 

According to information from Etherscan, It did not stop there. The mysterious fund proceeded to withdraw 397 million USDC from Circle through another address and transferred to exchanges since the 10th of February, 2023. Seeing as both anonymous addresses transferred USDC to exchanges through the same addresses, it is obvious it came from the same individual or institution. 

Lookonchain continued to list several other mysterious funds that seem to have followed the same pattern. For example, another mysterious fund, “Ox3356 ” withdrew 953.6 million USDC from Circle and transferred it to crypto exchanges.

After the analysis, Lookonchain believes that the current and sudden rise in BTC prices can be attributed to this particular fund. Yet another fund related to FalconX also withdrew 143 million USDC from the Circle. 

In response to Lookonchain’s tweet, some users believe there are more factors at play than the involvement of whales. Since a lot of countries are talking about legalizing crypto transactions, institutions might be jumping into the fray, using BTC and ETH as reserve assets.