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- Whale Alert records a spike in Bitcoin outflows from Coinbase to unknown wallets.
- There is speculation that the BTC withdrawn may be part of the purchase announced by MicroStrategy to add to its treasury.
Bitcoin‘s recent price drop coincides with an outflow of more than 1 billion BTC from Coinbase – the preferred platform for institutions. And maybe, MicroStrategy’s CEO Michael Saylor is behind it, again.
The U.S.-based software company recently announced that it has completed the sale of $1.05 billion in convertible notes at 0% interest with a 50% conversion premium. The notes were issued with the goal of increasing MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin holdings as part of its treasury strategy.
After MicroStrategy managed to fully raise its offering last week, within a very short period of time, there were numerous eye-catching whale transactions on Coinbase today. A total of 13,204 bitcoin were withdrawn from Coinbase into an unknown wallet, as reported by WhaleAlert. The shift was made in 36 separate transactions between 4 and 5 PM UTC, ranging in size from 351 to 391 BTC.
In addition, 4,501 Bitcoin left the platform last night, which means more than a billion dollars in Bitcoin was withdrawn from Coinbase to unknown wallet addresses in the last 24 hours.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 4,501 #BTC (256,327,624 USD) transferred from #Coinbase to unknown wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) February 21, 2021
MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin-focused strategy
The coincidences between MicroStrategy’s announcement and the withdrawal of the funds in BTC from Coinbase are strong indicators that the company once again chose to use this platform to make its BTC purchase. As CNF reported, Coinbase was the exchange the company used to make its initial acquisition for about 38,000 BTC in 2020.
At the time, the company triggered an effect that spread to other publicly traded companies on major U.S. exchanges. One of the most significant was Tesla’s $1.5 billion BTC acquisition also completed using Coinbase’s services.
Altana Digital Currency Fund CIO Alistair Milne believes BTC price was negatively affected by the purchase which he attributes to MicroStrategy. In addition, the futures market had high funding rates. For the moment, Milne has set the support levels at $52,000, $50,000 and $48,000. Although BTC could fall further, it “shouldn’t do so”, Milne said.
Why the dip?
– funding rates very high
– Saylor finished buying
– many can't take profits on weekneds
– @Cryptopathic took profitsObvious levels: $52k, $50k (run stops here), $48k … must not go lower than $42k imo
— Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) February 22, 2021
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has become one of the biggest bulls and most prominent Bitcoin advocates. Saylor has been interviewed on multiple occasions and his pro-Bitcoin message has been replicated across traditional media. About his company’s new business model, Saylor said:
We have two strategies. One strategy is to grow our software business and that is a good business. It makes a lot of money and it is growing.
Our second strategy is to acquire Bitcoin and Bitcoin is the emerging dominant digital monetary network. It’s going to be a hundred times bigger than Google or Facebook. And when companies like Amazon plugged into the internet, people didn’t say ‘Are you an internet company or a retail company? I think we’re a technology company who embraced the future. Everybody is eventually going to plug into a digital monetary network just like everybody eventually plugged into the internet.
