Chinese authorities suspected of large-scale sale of bitcoins. The can stand behind a massive sell-out of bitcoins previously owned by the PlusToken Ponzi scheme.
Bitcoin exchange rate is still struggling to overcome $7,500. The current downward movement of bitcoin is allegedly caused by a massive sale of BTC by the organizers of the Chinese Ponzi scheme. Contrary to popular belief, that it was PlusToken founders who started selling bitcoins, the crypto investor Alistair Milne suggested that PlusToken bitcoins are being sold by the Chinese authorities.
“My theory:
- PlusToken holdings are being liquidated by the authorities (keys probably surrendered upon arrests)
- Coins are mixed to try to obfuscate in order to not be interpreted as a government 'endorsement' of Huobi
- They will sell more carefully now people are aware.”
At the end of June, six founders of the PlusToken Ponzi scheme were arrested in the Pacific state of Vanuatu at the request of China. This Ponzi scheme had spread throughout Asia and tricked investors about $3 billion, promising them a yield of up to 600%. According to Chainalysis, bitcoins from PlusToken wallets have been set in motion recently. According to the Chainalysis estimates, the organizers sold about 25,000 bitcoins, another 20,000 are distributed among 8700 bitcoin addresses. Apart from bitcoins, PlusToken accumulated large volumes of ETH, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, XRP, Doge and Dash. According to the research, many transactions were made through coin mixing services, such as Wasabi Wallet, in order to make it difficult to identify senders. Chainalysis suspects that a significant portion of bitcoins were sold through over-the-counter desks that deal directly with individuals outside of exchanges in order to launder coins through exchanges in China such as Huobi.
But some investors do not see evidence that PlusToken bitcoins fell into hands of the Chinese authorities.
“Given they stopped dumping when price got too low, assumption is they care about the money. If I was China I would want to dump BTC to the ground,” tweeted Willie Woo, a South Korean crypto investor. But Milne retorted that China’s true attitude to bitcoin is dramatically different from public rhetoric.
“They don't hate it at all, just want the flows to be the right direction,” he commented.
