In the past 90 days, a wallet has amassed more than 118,000 BTC, becoming the third largest holder of Bitcoin. Speculations about the true owner of the mysterious wallet have divided the community into two main camps.
According to one group, the Winklevoss-led Gemini is the entity in possession, while an alternative viewpoint suggests that asset management giant BlackRock might be behind it.
- The wallet in question started accumulating Bitcoin on 8 March 2023, and within a short span of time, has become the third largest holder of BTC.
- Data from BitInfoCharts suggest that the unknown wallet currently possesses the equivalent of $3.09 billion worth of BTC and is trailing behind the cold wallets controlled by crypto exchanges BINANCE and Bitfinex.
- This led many to believe that another centralized exchange might be behind this wallet’s ownership, and Gemini has emerged as a potential contender.
- Prominent Chinese crypto reporter Colin Wu also said that it is a new address to which Gemini transferred the BTC.
- The BlackRock speculation, on the other hand, comes amidst a heightened frenzy of a potential spot Bitcoin ETF. This is due to the fact that the largest transaction on the address in question occurred on 16 May, a month before the firm applied for a spot Bitcoin ETF to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
- Should this application receive approval, it would be the first product of its kind in the country.
- Hence, speculations are rife that Bitcoin will continue to drop until a spot BTC ETF is approved by the financial regulator.
- Consequently, if BlackRock has indeed been accumulating BTC, this scenario could potentially work to the advantage of the company.
- However, there’s no solid proof to back the claims that BlackRock is behind the wallet.
