A wallet address belonging to BitMEX has sparked controversy as it has accumulated approximately 10,000 Bitcoins (BTC) worth 10.87 billion Turkish Liras since the beginning of November. CryptoQuant, a blockchain data analysis company, revealed that BitMEX internally transferred its cryptocurrency assets to a new wallet address.
The rapid accumulation of BTC in the wallet address associated with BitMEX has led to speculation about a new large investor purchasing Bitcoin, awaiting the approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US until February 2024. CryptoQuant clarified that the wallet address starting with “bc1qc…” is a new address created for offline cold storage by BitMEX.
According to on-chain data, the largest one-time BTC transfer to the wallet address contained 566 BTC. Additionally, this wallet address can be seen in BitMEX’s latest published proof-of-reserves report. Prior to the release of the report, CryptoQuant had labeled the wallet addresses that made transfers to this wallet address as BitMEX.
CryptoQuant stated that the BTC in the new wallet address was transferred from a total of 450 wallet addresses. These wallet addresses are also listed in BitMEX’s Proof-of-Reserves report and start with the prefix “bc1qmex”. According to Bitinfocharts data, the mentioned wallet address currently ranks as the 74th largest Bitcoin wallet address in the world.
CryptoQuant reported that BitMEX’s transfers are internal and that the majority of Bitcoin assets are moved from wallet addresses in the 3BMEX format to wallet addresses in the bc1qmex format. Additionally, the mentioned wallet address naturally supports the Segregated Witness (SegWit) feature, allowing for more efficient and low-cost Bitcoin deposit transactions, starting with “bc1q”.
