Bitcoin exchange inflows echo the 2018 crypto capitulation, but the reasons for the largescale moves from Binance remain unclear.
Bitcoin inflows to the largest exchange Binance just saw a giant spike reminiscent of the 2018 bear market capitulation.
The latest on-chain figures from Binance could provide an additional catalyst for nervous markets — the exchange has seen its daily biggest inflow on record.
With Nov. 18 not over, partial data from CryptoQuant puts current inflows at over 138,000 BTC for the day so far.
To put the deposit in perspective, even taking into account outflows — not just at Binance, but other major exchanges — the inflows are still the largest since Nov. 30, 2018. Two weeks later, BTC/USD bottomed at $3,100 after falling 40%.
For Binance itself, meanwhile, the move means that its BTC reserves are now higher than before the FTX debacle began — 573,000 compared to 513,000 on Nov. 6.
The event has not gone unnoticed, and one commentator was quick to note that just over 59,000 had come from a “de-peg” of Binance’s Bitcoin BEP2 (BTCB) token.
BTCB is a Bitcoin-backed token on Binance Chain with a publicly known reserve address. That wallet contained 68,200 BTC at the time of writing, having seen outflows of 127,351 BTC on the day.
Unlike regular operations, however, the decrease in the BTCB market cap at the same time as the reserve decreases suggests that genuine selling is afoot.