The cryptocurrency market has been rocked by a seismic sell-off over the previous 24 hours, with the 2 largest digital belongings, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), plummeting over 20% in worth. On the epicenter of the chaos is without doubt one of the trade’s greatest names – Justin Sun, the founding father of the TRON blockchain. On-chain information means that Sun could have used the pullback to scoop up thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of Ethereum at discounted costs.
Market Meltdown Wipes Out $600 Billion
In keeping with a Fortune report, this market upheaval unfolded in opposition to a backdrop of widespread inventory market sell-offs triggered by a disappointing jobs report and perceived inaction by the Federal Reserve (Fed).
Regardless of current constructive developments within the crypto sector, such because the launch of Ethereum ETFs within the US in July, digital belongings mirrored the inventory market downturn. The whole crypto market cap tumbled from over $2.5 trillion on July 28 to roughly $1.9 trillion on Monday, marking probably the most substantial loss since 2022.
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Crypto market maker Wintermute, described the crypto plunge to Fortune as “unexpected,” and attributed it to the US jobs report. The agency famous liquidations surpassing $1 billion in digital asset positions in a single day, together with a $57 billion decline in altcoin market capitalization.
Noteworthy was a selloff from Leap Buying and selling, a Chicago-based buying and selling agency that had performed a big position within the crypto trade earlier than scaling again amid collapses and regulatory scrutiny.
On-chain data by Spot On Chain point out Leap transferring $47 million value of Ethereum to centralized exchanges (CEXs), although Wintermute cautioned in opposition to oversimplifying market actions by attributing them solely to Leap’s actions.
Sun’s Ethereum Buying Spree
Amid this market turmoil, consideration turned to Justin Sun, the founding father of the TRON blockchain. Stories surfaced of a suspicious handle linked to Sun shopping for 16,236 ETH with 37 million USDT stablecoin, as ETH plummeted to $2,112 on Monday, with a mean buy value of $2,279.
The handle, created three hours prior, allegedly withdrew 38 million USDT from the HTX alternate earlier than buying the ETH tokens. It’s additional alleged that this handle belongs to Sun on account of its habits mirroring earlier ETH purchases by him.
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Notably, Sun reportedly holds over 700,000 ETH, with current information exhibiting a considerable lack of round $280 million as Ethereum’s worth dropped by 20%. Since February 8, 2024, Sun allegedly accrued 377,590 ETH throughout three wallets, costing an estimated $1.15 billion.
Regardless of Ethereum buying and selling properly under his common shopping for value of $3,051, Sun has denied rumors of liquidation. In a social media post, Sun acknowledged:
The rumors about our positions being liquidated are false. We hardly ever have interaction in leveraged buying and selling methods as a result of we imagine such trades don’t considerably profit the trade. As a substitute, we desire to have interaction in actions that present better help to the trade and entrepreneurs, equivalent to staking, working nodes, engaged on tasks, and serving to challenge groups present liquidity.
On the time of writing, ETH has managed to bounce again to the $2,460 stage, with a 346% improve in buying and selling quantity over the previous 24 hours, amounting to $76 billion, in line with CoinGecko data.
Featured picture from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
