On Thursday night last week, someone (or maybe a group of persons) converted 94,505 bitcoins valued at more than one billion dollars. Nobody knows who made the head-shaking transaction.
But one thing is clear: it is the biggest one ever made in the cryptocurrency market. The sender paid an unusually high transaction fee of $700 when it could have only been $35. But, with a billion dollars, the actual fee is actually peanuts.
Bitcoin's unregulated transaction "book" is open, but internet addresses are not. As a result, analysts know that there was a transaction made, but as to the identity of who was/were behind it - and the reason why - remains a mystery for the moment.
There is a little bit of clue, though. One analysis showed that 70 percent of the money has been traced from an Asian country: Singapore.
TokenAnalyst, a blockchain analysis agency, disclosed on Twitter that the transaction points to Huobi Global - a Singapore-based virtual money exchange. Coindesk reported that Huobi is "looking into the validity of the claim."
Whale Alert reported that the conversion was done from unidentified electronic wallets with unverified links to exchange. One of the transactions involved 55 percent of the value, while the other transactions were carried out from three other sources.
Another theory suggests that institutional investors may have transacted with Bakkt, which recently announced they were accepting bitcoin deposits soon. Max Keiser of Heisenberg Capital agrees with this theory and anticipates that Bakkt is bracing to explore the bitcoin market.
Last week's transaction is not the biggest in bitcoin history. For instance, in 2013, an unknown person carried out one transaction worth 194,993 BTC. But the price of the crypto was lower that time, so the transaction was only worth around $150 million.
Two years prior, an even bigger transaction involving 550,000 bitcoins, was made. But with the virtual currency valued at only $3 back then, the conversion was worth only $1.5 million at the time.
On July 29, Larry Cermak, research director at digital currency news firm The Block, spotted a "whale" (a collection of large-scale crypto owners) transferring 142,325 bitcoins, worth around $1.3 billion at that time. Cermak suggested that bitcoin wallet outlet Xapo could have been the one that processed the transaction.
While nobody knows the truth behind the humongous BTC transaction, analysts believe that crypto whales will come out in huge numbers more frequently these days to make billions in electronic transactions.
