More than 12,000 bitcoins (currently worth more than $117 million), belonging to the fraudsters of the Plus Token pyramid, have just moved to two new blockchain addresses.
Chiachih Wu, vice president of research at PeckShield, a Chinese security firm, has written on Twitter about the two portfolio addresses from which the funds were transferred.
It happened! Bitcoin at $10,000!
Initially, he reported 20,000 BTC, but this figure has been adjusted to 12,000 BTC.
The first wallet, belonging to the fraudsters from Plus Token, contains 11 999 Bitcoins, the second one contains 424 bitcoins.
Both new addresses are most likely “cold wallets”. In this case, private keys are stored on a hardware device, disconnected from the Internet.
Are we going to “dump” Bitcoin again?
The funds deposited on these wallets have not been transferred for over 6 months. Are the scammers going to sell them ? We don’t know that, but if they do, a single sale of such a large amount of BTC could lead to a drop in Bitcoin’s price. In the past, the liquidation of Bitcoins by members of Plus Token had an impact on BTC’s price drop.
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The Plus Token financial pyramid is one of the biggest cryptographic scams. According to the estimates of the analytical company Blockchain CipherTrace, more than 2.9 billion dollars were scammed as a result of the pyramid. These are estimates, no one is able to determine the exact figure. Plus Token claimed to have about 4 million users.
Last year, the Chinese authorities arrested six people suspected of involvement. Unfortunately, the main managers of the pyramid remain at large. Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company in cooperation with Elementus, has discovered that Bitcoins from the Plus Token fraud are mostly “washed” on the Huobi crypto market.
For example, Elementus found that almost 50% of all Plus Token withdrawals were sent to Huobi. So far, the exchange has not blocked any suspicious transactions. Detection of all transactions makes it difficult for fraudsters to use cryptic “mixers”, which effectively cover the traces. Additionally, the sale of Bitcoins from Plus Token is mostly done by OTC brokers.
Will there be another drop in price caused by the sale of Bitcoins from Plus Token? Please share your opinion in the comments.
