Over the past couple of days, investors have grown fearful regarding the possibility of a massive Chinese Ponzi scam dumping the significant amount of Bitcoin (BTC) that they hold in wallets onto the markets, which may have contributed to the recent downwards pressure experienced by the entire crypto markets.
Now, new data suggests that a small portion of the scammer’s Bitcoin has already been moved to exchanges, which may signal that a massive influx of selling pressure is imminent.
Chinese Ponzi Scammers Wield Significant Power Over the Markets With Massive Bitcoin Holdings
Earlier this week, investors were thrown into a slight panic after Dovey Wan, a founding partner at PrimitiveCrypto, elucidated the fact that one of the largest Chinese Ponzi schemes – which has resulted in multiple arrests – has led to a handful of scammers holding a total of 70,000 Bitcoin and 800,000 Ethereum in their wallets.
“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,” she explained.
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
Importantly, the core members of this scam have been caught and arrested by the police, but the cryptocurrency that they stole from unsuspecting investors has not been recovered by police forces.
Importantly, a recent report from Bloomberg elucidated that, according to research from TokenAnalyst, it doesn’t appear that any of their addresses are exchange owned.
“It doesn’t look like any of these addresses are exchange owned. We’ll keep an eye on this to see if they do move the 100s of millions into exchanges at some point,” Sid Shekhar, the co-founder of TokenAnalyst, explained to Bloomberg.
Are Ponzi Scheme’s BTC Beginning to Move to Exchanges?
Despite the aforementioned data regarding the PlusToken group’s Bitcoin not having been moved to any exchanges, Dovey Wan noted in a tweet from earlier today that it now appears that 663 BTC have been moved to a Houbi Exchange wallet, while an additional 540 Bitcoin has been moved to a Bittrex Exchange wallet.
“PlusToken fund flow by @peckshield so far 540 $BTC has gone into @BittrexExchange and 663 $BTC has gone into @HuobiGlobal,” she noted while referencing the below graphic.
PlusToken fund flow by @peckshield so far 540 $BTC has gone into @BittrexExchange and 663 $BTC has gone into @HuobiGlobal
Huge shout out to the team at PeckShield doing this research for free with their engineering cycle pic.twitter.com/gK2XwTn619
— Dovey 以德服人 Wan ?? (@DoveyWan) August 16, 2019
Although it remains unclear as to whether or not this Bitcoin will soon be dumped onto the markets, it is certainly a risk that investors should monitor closely, as it could lead to a significant sell-off in the future.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
