Plus Token’s $1.3B ETH could be sold, ‘Crypto King’ arrested: Asia Express
ErgoBTC’s latest analyst states that around a third of the seized Ether was sold at now-defunct crypto exchange Bidesk in 2021. The remainder, approximately 542,000 Ether in thousands of wallets, started moving in August and was consolidated into 294 addresses
Around $16 million in Ether from the Plus Token scam started moving to exchanges this week, suggesting intent to sell, according to on-chain analyst ErgoBTC.
The Plus Token Ponzi scheme, which defrauded investors between 2018 and 2019, led to the reported seizure of $4.2 billion in crypto by Chinese authorities, including 833,083 ETH.
ErgoBTC’s latest analyst states that around a third of the seized Ether was sold at now-defunct crypto exchange Bidesk in 2021. The remainder, approximately 542,000 Ether in thousands of wallets, started moving in August and was consolidated into 294 addresses.
This week saw the movement of 15,700 Ether, of which around 7,000($16 million) entered exchanges.
“Given the recent effort to re-obfuscate the ETH it is unlikely that the active distribution of the 15.7k ETH moved yesterday is the last of the 540k ETH supply distribution,” ErgoBTC said on X.
The Plus Token fund movements caused quite the division this past August, as no one could agree on how much of the ponzi scheme’s ETH was still available to be sold.
Blockchain tracker Lookonchain initially claimed on X that 789,533 dormant Ether from the Plus Token scheme had started moving.
Lookonchain deleted the post after onchain analyst EmberCN reported that 268,843 ETH had been sold at Bidesk in 2021. EmberCN claimed to have tracked 25,757 of the remaining Ether to 12 addresses, adding that most of the Ether was sold in 2021.
Data platform Arkham Intelligence offered its own analysis, estimating that 196,000 dormant Ether related to PlusToken began moving within a 12-hour period.
ErgoBTC’s analysis agrees with EmberCN’s statement about the near-269,000 Ether at Bidesk, but finds Ether from the scam in more than the 12 wallets.
Similar to Arkham’s preliminary report, ErgoBTC found that dormant Ether — estimated at the remaining 540,000 — began moving in August.
The movement of $16 million in Ether isn’t a significant supply shock for the cryptocurrency, but the possible movement of 540,000 Ether, worth around $1.3 billion, presents a much larger sell pressure.
