Popular cryptocurrency exchange bitfinex has just moved over $1.1 billion worth of the flagship cryptocurrency bitcoin for a transaction fee of only $80, creating the network’s second-largest address.

The exchange’s move was initially spotted on social media, where users quickly managed to identify the transaction came from Bitfinex’s cold storage wallet. In total, Bitfinex moved 123,946.6 BTC, worth over $1 billion, and equivalent to roughly 0.7% of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply.

The transaction fee Bitfinex paid was 0.0096 BTC, or roughly $83. While this isn’t the first transaction of its kind, as in May 2019 a mysterious whale moved $230 million worth of bitcoin for $0.57, this is one of the largest cryptocurrency transactions ever in USD terms. It created the second-largest BTC address, according to BitInfoCharts, only falling behind Huobi’s cold storage wallet, with 255,500 BTC in it.

On social media some critics claimed it would be possible to conduct the same transaction with other cryptocurrencies for a fraction of the cost, although it’s worth pointing out that holding $1 billion worth of any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin would mean some centralization, as the market cap of even the second-largest crypto, ether, is of $17 billion.

Even if the funds are held on an exchange, it could spell disaster if it has problems. Even on the Bitcoin network dormant bitcoin whales are seen as a threat that could “crush the market completely” according to analysts.

As CryptoGlobe reported, a dormant whale with 80,000 BTC, worth around $702 million, could crash bitcoin’s price by selling its holdings all at once. In a widely reported case, a BTC whale sold around $1 billion worth of BTC on exchange between August 29 and September 6, 2019, leading to a price drop of 15%.

Featured image via Unsplash.