A whale has withdrawn a staggering amount of Shiba Inu tokens from prominent crypto exchange KuCoin following an indictment from U.S. authorities.
Data indexed by popular crypto tracking bot Whale Alert shows that 2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) Shiba Inu tokens worth $62.23 million, were withdrawn from KuCoin yesterday. According to the post, the funds were withdrawn to an unknown wallet from KuCoin.
🚨 🚨 🚨 2,000,000,000,000 #SHIB (62,232,000 USD) transferred from #Kucoin to unknown wallethttps://t.co/5mARFlvcou
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) March 27, 2024
This stirred a series of reactions, with some community members speculating that a whale entity might have moved the funds on the back of the charges leveled against KuCoin by U.S. authorities.
Details of the Transaction
On the contrary, investigations show that KuCoin withdrew the funds to one of its wallets labeled “KuCoin 20.” Further analysis of data provided by Arkham Intelligence reveals that the recipient address currently holds crypto assets worth $573.32 million.
Interestingly, Shiba Inu ranks as the most valuable asset in the address, with a valuation of $62.09 million.
Mass Crypto Withdrawals as U.S. Government Charges KuCoin
The recent transaction coincides with reports of U.S. authorities filing criminal charges against the exchange and two of its founders, Ke Tang and Chun Gan.
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) accused KuCoin of violating the Bank Secrecy Act, a similar charge leveled against Binance last year.
Furthermore, the authorities claimed that KuCoin operated in the U.S. without registering and complying with anti-money laundering rules and other laws.
Shortly after the allegations went viral, KuCoin experienced a massive outflow estimated at over $1 billion. As reported yesterday, the exchange moved a whopping 250 million XRP worth $158.38 million between its wallets.
The XRP coins were moved to satisfy users’ withdrawal needs. On-chain data shows that these funds were transferred in bits to other leading crypto exchanges, including Binance and Bybit.
While KuCoin moved the 250M XRP coins to satisfy users’ withdrawal needs, it appears that the rationale behind the 2T Shiba Inu tokens was for safekeeping.
Meanwhile, Shiba Inu’s price has staged a daily increase of 4% to $0.00003105. The canine-themed token is the 11th biggest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of $18.27 billion.
