Altcoins Talks - Cryptocurrency Forum
Cryptocurrency Ecosystem => Bitcoin Forum => Bitcoin News & Updates => Topic started by: LogiC on September 18, 2018, 03:57:20 PM
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Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has experienced a large sell off as Bitcoin demonstrated a 3 percent drop in price, leading the market to drop $10 billion.
Ethereum and EOS recorded the largest drop amongst major cryptocurrencies at 9 percent, while Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Monero, Cardano, and Dash demonstrated steep 7 percent losses.
What Caused the Steep Decline?
On September 16, CCN reported that a wallet containing $720 million in Bitcoin, which was dormant for many years, started to move funds to Bitfinex.
A Reddit user with an online alias u/Sick_Silk claimed that the wallet is owned by a Silk Road-related figure, who was most likely involved in the operation of the dark web marketplace. The user said:
“It seems that the owner of a huge SilkRoad related wallet is moving funds actively since 3 days, dividing it in chunks of 100 coins by subwallets. The original wallet owned 111,114.62 BTC / BCH , which is currently valuated ~ $844M (without taking in account other #Bitcoin forks). Last movements on these subwallets are 4 years and 5 months old (March 9th, 2014).”
WizSec, a Japan-based security agency which discovered the money launderer behind the stolen funds of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, stated that the wallet is completely unrelated to Silk Road but rather to Mt. Gox. Analysts at the agency explained that a whale investor who purchased a massive batch of Bitcoin a few years back have started moving the funds.
It is possible that the sell-off of hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin initiated by one whale investor caused a domino effect across all major cryptocurrency exchanges, causing the market to drop substantially.
Source: https://www.ccn.com/crypto-bloodbath-bitcoin-and-ethereum-record-losses-in-10-billion-wipeout/