The famous cryptocurrency tracking site Whale Alert has spotted a major transaction that has surprised the entire cryptocurrency community. The transaction was made from the cryptocurrency exchange OKEx that suspended its withdrawals’ service early on October 16, 2020. According to Whale Alert, an amount of $96 million in Bitcoin (BTC) was transferred from the OKEx exchange to the leading digital currency exchange Binance.
A total of 8,500 BTC moved from OKEx to Binance
Whale Alert reported that 8,500 BTC in total were transferred from OKEx into the major crypto exchange Binance. This amount was moved into two separate transactions. As per the Whale Alert report, the first transaction contained an amount of 5,000 BTC worth approximately $56.5 million. While on the other hand, in the second transaction, an amount of 3,500 BTC worth $39.6 million approximately was sent to the wallet of the Binance exchange. In total, $96 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) was moved out of the OKEx exchange.
Such kinds of transactions between wallet addresses occur on a daily basis, it is common. However, this particular transaction has surprised the cryptocurrency community. The reason is that before these transfers of BTC took place, the Malta-based digital currency exchange OKEx had halted the withdrawal service for users because one of its private key holders was not in touch with the exchange. If the withdrawal service is not operating it means that it is not possible to access funds of wallet and an exchange cannot move funds if they are not accessed. However, despite the suspended withdrawal service, a huge amount of BTC has been moved from OKEx’s wallet addresses into Binance. This move has raised questions in the cryptocurrency community.
Wallet addresses were not of OKEx
However, the Director of Financial Markets at the OKEx exchange Lennix Lai has clarified the situation in a tweet and said that these wallet addresses do not belong to the crypto exchange OKEx.
The blockchain analytics company Chainalysis’ Chief Economist Phillip Gradwell also supported the claim of Lennix Lai. He said that this transfer has not been made from OKEx to Binance. It has been mislabeled, he added.