Binance Sees Record 138K BTC Inflows As Opinions Differ On What Bitcoin Price Will Do Next

Bitcoin (BTC) inflows to largest exchange Binance just saw a giant spike reminiscent of the bear market capitulation of 2018.

Data from on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant shows that on November 18, a giant tranche of nearly 60,000 BTC entered Binance’s wallet.

The foreign exchange inflow is the highest since the end of 2018

Fears of BTC price contagion thanks to the FTX insolvency and related panic selling are ongoing.

Now, the latest on-chain figures from Binance may provide an additional catalyst for jittery markets – the exchange has seen its largest daily inflow ever.

With November 18 not over, partial data from CryptoQuant puts current inflows at over 138,000 BTC for the day so far.

Binance BTC Inflow Chart. Source: CryptoQuant

To put the deposit into perspective, even taking into account outflows – not only at Binance, but other major exchanges – inflows are still the largest since November 30, 2018. Two weeks later, BTC/USD bottomed out at $3,100 after falling 40 %.

For Binance itself, the move means BTC reserves are now higher than before the FTX debacle began – 573,000 compared to 513,000 on November 6.

Binance BTC Reserve Chart. Source: CryptoQuant

The event has not gone unnoticed, and one commentator was quick to note that just over 59,000 had come from a “de-peg” of Binance’s Bitcoin BEP2 (BTCB) token.

BTCB is a Bitcoin-backed token on the Binance Chain with a publicly known reserve address. That wallet held 68,200 BTC at the time of writing, having seen outflows of 127,351 BTC on the day.

However, contrary to normal operation, the decline in BTCB market cap at the same time as the reserve decreased suggests that real selling is underway, according to CryptoQuant CEO, Ki Young Ju.

Ki explained the theory behind what he called “selling pressure” in a Twitter thread:

“Justification: – If you are CZ, why are you disconnecting Bitcoins from the BNB chain? Your goal is to support projects on the BNB chain. – No announcements from Binance means that it is the customer’s or investor’s money. So I think this activity was the most likely from customers who are in an urgent situation.”

Bitcoin BEP2 (BTCB) reserve address transaction summary (screenshot). Source: BTC.com

Exchange week with warmth

Opinions were nevertheless far from aligned on the issue, with others arguing that the gigantic influxes were simply internal reorganization, which would have no further consequences.

Related: Bitcoin Price Target Hits $13.5K as BTC Trader Says ‘Get Out of All Markets’

“Binance saw a large inflow of up to 127,351 bitcoins and a large outflow of nearly 50,000 bitcoins today. On-chain verification shows that these inflows and outflows are organized by internal wallets, which are transfers between cold wallets and proof-of-concept wallets reserves, says cryptocurrency journalist Colin Wu tired in a widely retweeted tweet.

“I don’t really understand the Jump rumours,” Andrew T, a technician at analytics platform Nansen, tweeted about the general influx into Binance.

“There have been some massive outflows in the last seven days, but also inflows elsewhere. “they transfer to Binance to dump” doesn’t seem right.”

Bitcoin Exchange BTC Online Flow Chart. Source: CryptoQuant

As Cointelegraph reported, exchange users withdrew over $3 billion in the days after FTX went under, a trend that continues.

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