A large wallet on the Ethereum blockchain holding a substantial amount of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB) has transferred over 180 billion tokens to two cryptocurrency trading platforms in a move that could lead to a short-term decline in the value of SHIB.
According to cryptocurrency analytics firm Lookonchain, a wallet identified by its initial, 0xd6, has moved over 182 billion Shiba Inu to two exchanges: Gemini and Crypto.com, during Asian morning hours earlier in the week.
The cryptocurrency whale, as pointed out, has in the past moved a large number of tokens. Late last year it moved over 200 billion SHIB to Crypto.com, in a transaction that preceded a 7% drop in the price of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.
The wallet, on-chain data shows, currently holds over 3.1 trillion $SHIB, which are worth over $40 million at the time of writing, and only account for just over 0.3% of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency’s total supply.
Other holdings in the whale’s wallet include $3.9 million in Ethereum’s native $ETH token, $368,000 in Origin Trail ($TRAC), $366,000 in $BONE, $330,000 in Chainlink ($LINK) and over $200,000 in Loopring ($LRC), among other minor holdings.
The whale, Lookonchain has said bought 15.2 trillion SHIB with just 10 ETH back in August 2020, and made over 1,960 ETH by buying and selling the cryptocurrency on decentralized exchange Uniswap.
When the meme-inspired cryptocurrency was listed on centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, the whale started trading it there. Per Lookonchain, if the whale has been buying SHIB at the price at which it receives it, and selling it at the price it transfers it out of its wallet, it has made about $85 million in profit.
Per the analysts, the whale has always been buying SHIB when its price is low, and selling it when its price rises. While the movement of these SHIB tokens may lead to short-term price declines, they don’t reveal much about the long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies.
The whale’s movement comes shortly after another SHIB whale moved over 91 billion tokens into a While the movement of these SHIB tokens may lead to short-term price declines, the long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies and DeFi remains positive.
Notably, most Shiba Inu investors have shown they aren’t planning on selling en masse, as the median time that users on Coinbase hold onto the meme-inspired cryptocurrency before either selling it or moving it to an external address has surpassed the 230-day mark.
The number of Shiba Inu holders has been growing ahead of the expected launch of Shibarium. This upcoming layer-2 solution aims to improve the Shiba Inu ecosystem by providing faster transactions at a lower cost, among other important improvements. However, there are still many questions surrounding the release and utility of Shibarium.
Shibarium will work alongside Ethereum to process transactions on the Shibarium ecosystem. It will take a large cut of the transaction load the Shiba Inu ecosystem currently brings onto Ethereum to process it on the Shibarium chain.
Further, the layer-2 will remove tokens from circulating to reduce supply and help boost the price. This is known as a token burning mechanism, in which tokens are sent to wallets that can only receive tokens but not send them, also called Dead Wallets. Shibarium will burn $SHIB and require $BONE for transactions.
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