In the early hours of Monday, a sleeping whale moved $21 million worth of 4 DeFi tokens to the crypto exchange Binance. The news received mixed reactions from the community, which is concerned about an incoming dump amid the crypto market’s recent backlash.
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Whale deposits $21 million in DeFi tokens to Binance
On Monday, the analytics company Spotonchain said in the chain reported a sleeping whale had deposited approximately $13 million worth of crypto into Binance. After a year of holding, The Whale sent 3,800 Maker (MKR) and 20,000 Aave (AAVE) to Binance.
The company later revealed that the whale was apparently Tron founder Justin Sun. Three of the thirteen addresses believed to be owned by Sun were wallets that made the transfers.
According to the post, the whale deposited $21 million worth of 4 DeFi tokens to Binance in 30 minutes. The addresses sent 93,979 AAVE, worth approximately $11.26 million, and 3,800 MKR tokens.
The addresses purchased the MKR tokens in June 2023 for $2.43 million, acquiring the 3,800 tokens at an average price of $641.81. Meanwhile, AAVE tokens were purchased from June 2023 to January 2024 at an average price of $87.14.
At the time of publication, the crypto whale had an estimated profit of approximately $7 million, $6.74 million from MKR and $252,000 from AAVE.
Additionally, Sun sent over 4,000 and 200,000 Compound (COMP) and Liquidity (LQTY) tokens to the exchange. The transactions amount to 4,178 COMP, worth approximately $245,000, and 203,823 LQTY, worth approximately $217,000.
Are Sun’s transfers bearish or bullish?
The deposits raised concerns among the crypto community as deposits on exchanges are considered bearish and can significantly reduce a token’s price if dumped.
Nevertheless, some viewed Sun’s moves as one optimistic signal. One X user expressed optimism, claiming that whales “always make a deposit during consolidation before the outbreak.”
The same goes for other crypto investors to believe it’s “time to load up on DeFi” and that “Justin is about to give us generational access.”
It is worth noting that the community is closely following the on-chain moves of Tron’s founder. As NewsBTC reports, Sun is suspected of being the whale behind some of the massive Ethereum (ETH) purchases in the first quarter of 2024. Sun apparently purchased more than $891 million worth of ETH during the buying spree.
Despite the community’s response, the four DeFi tokens sent to Binance did not respond significantly to the transactions.
Following the news, AAVE saw a mild decline of 1.4% to the $91.26 level before recovering from the $92 support zone. The token saw a 12.4% decline on Friday following the recent market decline.
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Similarly, MKR saw a sharp drop of 10.6% this weekend, from the $2,600 price range to $2,300. However, the token has seen a 3.1% price drop in the last 24 hours. The MKR fell 1.8% after the news, but failed to recover in the following hours and is currently trading below $2,400.
Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com