On May 7, there were three huge changes in Binance’s Bitcoin balance. According to data analytics platform CryptoQuant, they consisted of 117,359 BTC out, 10,036 BTC in, and 40,184 BTC out.
However, this will likely depend on internal wallet adjustments rather than whales withdrawing their BTC from the exchange.
Industry analyst Colin Wu dug a little deeper, final:
“Based on further on-chain inspection, it is likely that the Binance cold wallet was internally adjusted to a new address, and the new address was not transferred after funds were received.”
Binance suspends transactions
The WhaleWire account said it was the largest single drawdown in the history of the exchange, worth $4.6 billion. It has been debated whether whales or insiders “jumped ship”, but it is highly unlikely that this is the case.
BREAK: #binance release data confirms the largest withdrawal in its history, over 162,000 $BTC left the exchange, valued at over $4.6 billion.
Are the whales/insiders leaving the ship? 👀 pic.twitter.com/QSXYAEvHkt
— WhaleWire (@WhaleWire) May 7, 2023
Binance retired old wallet addresses and inciting its customers to update them at new addresses.
The company emailed users, notifying them that their ERC-20 addresses would expire on May 9. However, there have been no such advisories for Bitcoin addresses yet, so moves may be in the works for further system and wallet security upgrades. .
“Binance has upgraded its wallet infrastructure to ensure better wallet efficiency and security. As such, we will be removing current drop addresses and memos on some networks, and users will need to obtain a new drop address.
Additionally, on May 7, Binance temporarily suspended BTC withdrawals due to network congestion. The suspension lasted only a few hours and services quickly resumed.
On May 8, Binance again suspended BTC transactions “due to the large volume of pending transactions.”
This could be related to large internal wallet movements, however, Binance did not elaborate.
We have temporarily closed #BTC withdrawals due to the large volume of pending transactions.
Our team is currently working on a fix and will reopen $BTC withdrawals as soon as possible.
Rest assured, the funds are SAFU.
— Binance (@binance) May 8, 2023
BTC Price Outlook
BTC prices were down 1.6% on the day falling to $28,448 at the time of writing. The asset hit a high of $29,724 over the weekend, but again the resistance above $30,000 proved too much to overcome.
BTC has mined this level four times in the past fortnight, each leading to a sharp pullback as buying pressure is exhausted. Downside support can be found around the $28,000 price level.
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