A total of $8.9 billion worth of bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, have been moved in a single hour earlier today, marking the highest hourly USD transaction volume in cryptocurrency history.
Despite the record-breaking transaction volume bitcoin’s price remains relatively stagnant, falling about 2% in the last 24-hour period to 7,300, after recovering from a low of $7,100 it saw yesterday. The low was hit shortly after a pump failed to maintain momentum to reach the $8,000.
According to Rafael Schultze-Kraft, cofounder of the on-chain market intelligence firm Glassnode, the record-breaking transaction volume turned out to not be something too exciting, as the moving BTC was associated to wallets belonging to cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex.
This $8.9 billion spike in on–chain volume was caused by @BittrexExchange moving a large amount of #bitcoin several times – a series of 21 transactions within one hour, each moving ~56,000 $BTC.
The first transaction in this sequence was: https://t.co/6zNGp7pwC3 https://t.co/kmc3ElnK5R
— glassnode (@glassnode) December 5, 2019
The transactions coincided with the exchange’s downtime, which means it could simply be moving around coins to improve its cold wallet security, or to improve its internal organization and coin management.
In total, Bittrex moved 1.18 million bitcoin, worth around $8.9 billion, over a series of 21 transactions. Each transaction moved around 56,000 bitcoin, or roughly $409 million worth of cryptocurrency. Each transaction had a fee close to $0.60, which means Bittrex moved nearly $9 billion and broke the record for the highest on-chain transaction volume in the cryptocurrency space for less than $12.5.
Overall, the transactions aren’t expected to affect bitcoin’s price, as internal movements aren’t associated with a large deposit or withdrawal – which means there shouldn’t be increased selling pressure or reduced supply because of them.
Featured image via Unsplash.
