PlusToken, an alleged Chinese cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, has just moved well over $100 million worth of XRP and EOS, which could threaten a dump on the market according to blockchain sleuths.
Whale Alert, a service tracking large cryptocurrency transactions across several blockchains, pointed to several large EOS and XRP transactions. Earlier Whale Alert tagged a 26.3 million EOS transaction (worth $67 million) moving from PlusToken’s wallet to an unknown wallet.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 26,316,339 #EOS (67,139,663 USD) transferred from PlusToken to unknown wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) June 22, 2020
It didn’t, however, tag two XRP transactions moving over $50 million worth of the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Another monitoring service, Bithomp, tagged the XRP address the funds moved from, adding a “fraud alert” to it for belonging to PlusToken.
On social media Thomas Silkjaer, founder and CEO of xrplorer, confirmed the funds were moved by PlusToken, adding that the funds usually end up being laundered via cryptocurrency exchanges, and that they have around 150 million XRP on their accounts.
Late last year, PlusToken also moved its near 790,000 ETH stash to an unknown wallet, presumably in a bid to start moving the funds and hide their origin. PlusToken is accused of being a Ponzi scheme that got $3 billion from its users before collapsing, which could make it the biggest crypto Ponzi scheme to date.
It’s currently unclear whether PlusToken has managed to move the funds to any cryptocurrency exchanges, but on social media users are showing concerns regarding a potential dump on the market, as the funds could severely affect the prices of these cryptoassets.
JUST IN
as per sir @loomdart ‘s request, this thread is abt the on-going sells off made by PLUS Token, the biggest Chinese PONZI which scammed ~70K $BTC + ~ 800K $ETH
I mentioned it briefly in my last Coindesk oped but worth additional attention as it may cause further sells pic.twitter.com/uIjgrzwHET
— Dovey 以德服人 Wan 🪐🦖 (@DoveyWan) August 14, 2019
A report published by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis last year revealed the “criminals behind the PlusToken Ponzi scheme could be driving down the price of bitcoin when they liquidate their stolen funds via OTC Brokers.” Chainalysis’ report last year came as BTC fell below $7,000.
It’s believed PlusToken has been laundering its funds via these over-the-counter brokers, who then sell the funds on cryptocurrency exchanges. The token’s Ethereum stash is still sitting in the address it was moved to in December 2019, however.
CryptoCompare data shows that both XRP and EOS appear to be unaffected by PlusToken’s movements, as both tokens are up in the last 23-hour period.
Featured image via Pexels
