Shiba Inu falls. Whales make waves that could drown the crypto price.

Shiba Inu is a so-called memecoin, created as more of an internet joke than a serious blockchain project, although developers working on the crypto ecosystem have recently outlined plans for an expansion that will do much more.

With a market value of around $6.8 billion, the Shiba Inu is the 14th largest digital asset and is itself a reference to the largest memecoin, Dogecoin, launched in late 2013 and based on a then-popular internet meme involving a Shiba Inu dog . Despite being rooted in jokes, both tokens rose to popularity amid the recent crypto bull run, helped in part by Tesla (ticker: TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk’s affinity for them.

While Musk, who owns a Shiba Inu dog and has toyed with Dogecoin prices through tweets and references on TV, is often a force behind memecoin price swings, something else is happening amid the Shiba Inu’s latest move.

There are signs that at least two major holders of the token, or “whales”, are positioning themselves to sell large amounts of Shiba Inu on crypto exchanges, which will put downward pressure on prices for the token. In focus is the movement of significant amounts of Shiba Inu from private crypto wallets to exchanges including Coinbase Global (COIN), Crypto.com and Gemini – transfers that are usually a precursor to selling the token.

A whale transferred 182 billion Shiba Inu tokens, or about $2.5 million, to two crypto exchanges early Monday, according to crypto intelligence group Lookonchain the flag on Twitter. The last time this specific address transferred a similar amount of Shiba Inu to an exchange, it resulted in a 7% price drop, according to Lookonchain. These transfers can be verified through public blockchain data, which details that the Shiba Inu holder sent 100 billion tokens to Crypto.com and 82 billion tokens to Gemini on Monday.

That’s not all.

Voyager Digital
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the digital asset lender that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last summer amid a period of falling crypto prices appears to be liquidating its holdings. The group is preparing to be acquired by Binance.US, although that deal has attracted objections from several US financial regulators.

Voyager is selling its assets at a rate of about $100 million per week, according to crypto intelligence group Arkham detailed in a post on Twitter Monday, citing blockchain data. Voyager has about $700 million in crypto, with one of its top holdings being Shiba Inu, according to Arkham, which pointed to data showing the failed lender sent 300 billion of the meme tokens, or about $4.1 million, to Coinbase on Monday.

Transferring crypto from a private wallet to an exchange is not a sure sign that tokens will be sold, but is usually a precursor to selling.

While the memecoin transfers only represent a few million dollars of the token – which has a multi-billion dollar market cap – they have the potential to move the markets significantly if sold quickly. Shiba Inu has a relatively low average daily trading volume among cryptos of its size, with less than $200 million traded in the last 24 hours, according to data group CoinMarketCap.

The transfers of Shiba Inu to exchanges could be another headwind on prices at a time when cryptos in general have stalled after a roaring rally to start the year.

Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]