European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp moved approximately $ 1 billion in bitcoin from its cold wallet for a transaction fee of less than $ 0.50.
The big move was identified at first by the Bitcoin Block Bot, which noticed that a bitcoin address moved 101,857 BTC in block 636,503. A fee of 13 satoshis / byte was paid, totaling 0.00005271 BTC or $ 0.48. The amount of bitcoin that was moved at the time of writing the article is worth $ 932.6 million.
Shortly after the transaction was noticed, some would-be detectives tried to identify who was behind it. A Reddit user succeeded shortly after referencing a tweet that Bitstamp co-founder Nejc Kodric published in October 2019, revealing that the exchange had handled 112,027 BTC, valued at $ 933 million at the time, for a fee of $ 3.89.
The wallet was allegedly used after Bitstamp agreed to have its funds in custody with BitGo. A more direct confirmation that the cryptocurrency exchange was responsible for the transaction that moved around $ 1 billion, however, came in a tweet from Nejc himself. In the message, he reveals that the address that moved the funds is from a cold wallet belonging to Bitstamp.
The transaction moved 96,857 bitcoins to one address and 5,000 bitcoins to another. She made it clear that the bitcoin blockchain is transparent and anyone can follow the path of a transaction to find out who is behind it.
While brokers and other companies are relatively easy to identify, the identity of some of the richest BTC addresses is still unknown.
This transaction also highlights the efficiency of bitcoin with regard to the movement of funds. According to TheFeeCalculator, a website dedicated to calculating PayPal fees, the same transaction would cost around $ 27 million if it were made by the payments giant.
