Who…or What… Just Bought $1.6 Billion Worth of Bitcoin?

Last Wednesday, the Bitcoin market was turned on its head when there was a huge $1.6 billion purchase of the cryptocurrency. The big mystery is, however, who did it, and why was it done?

What is Going On?

The buying and selling of Bitcoin is totally anonymous, so we might never know who did it. Was it a single buyer? Was it a group? Was it Elon Musk? Who knows. What we do know is that $1.6 billion worth of the crypto was purchased in under five minutes…and that, alone, pushed the prices up 5% to just around $55,500 for a single coin.

Where Did This Happen?

Another clue we can look at in solving this mystery is to look at where this trade occurred. Again, since Bitcoin trading is unregulated, we can’t know exactly, but we can theorize based on a couple of factors.

Some believe that because the price of Bitcoin, when compared to other exchanges, caused those to rise, too, which would indicate the trade took place in the US. However, there were also some strange things happening on Asian markets at the same time. So, was it done in Asia?

What we DO know is that this trade also could indicate that the buyer or buyers is looking at futures, and if that’s the case, it’s possible that they have some information stating that the price of Bitcoin will skyrocket.

One of these scenarios is the fact that there are a lot of rumors spreading that the SEC could approve a Bitcoin ETF. If they know something, however, they could be guilty of insider trading. So, perhaps buying it from Asia might be an attempt to stay out of US exchanges.

When Did it Happen?

Next, let’s take a look at when this trade happened. It occurred on a Wednesday…mid-week, at a time when China, which has some exchanges associated with it where some of these trades too place, was experiencing capital market issues.

On top of this, just two days before the trades, a real estate developer, called Fantasia, did not make a $206 bond payment that was due. This company, and other real estate companies in China, were downgraded by Standard & Poor’s. Plus, of course, we have the big Evergrande debacle in China, which could default at any time.

With all of this happening, could it be possible that the Chinese real estate market could be connected to this major trade?

How Did it Happen?

From the information we have, is it possible to know how the trade was made? Well, we do know this: it probably was not done in US dollars, and this is why:

First, there is a lot of speculation, as we mentioned above, that the trade was done on the futures market, not the cash market. So, the Bitcoins might not have gone directly to the buyer. Additionally, we know that the transactions seem to have been done using stablecoin USDT, which is really common to use in China on its exchanges. Additionally, we know that the USDT was not obtained the same day, so whomever bought these Bitcoins was someone with a lot of USDT volume.

Can we solve the mystery? No, not right now, though it seems like it’s leaning towards someone or something in China or another Asian country could be behind it. We will have to keep watching to see how this begins to unfold.