41 days after the withdrawal was stopped, OKEx started the withdrawal at 4 pm Beijing time on the 26th. Inevitably, the wave of withdrawals seems to have begun.
Coindesk stated that about 2822 bitcoins were removed from OKEx, with block number 658,728, and they were mined at 08:12 UTC. According to CryptoQuant data, this is the largest single block outflow since May 2019. But Wu said that the blockchain discovered that CryptoQuant also appeared very strange data. OKEx’s Bitcoin reserves suddenly fell off a cliff, reducing by about 5,000 Bitcoins, but then began to recover quickly, and then fell and recovered again.
The Binance Beijing Chainsmap monitoring system found that one hour after the OKEx exchange reopened for withdrawal at 4 pm, 70.41 BTC flowed in, 5681.79 BTC flowed out (verifiable with CryptoQuant), and BTC flowed out of the top three target exchanges: Binance, Huobi , ZB.com; inflow of 433703.00 ERC20 USDT, outflow of 47087425.32 ERC20 USDT, outflow of the top three target exchanges: Huobi, Binance, ZB.com.
Prior to this, on November 2nd, the COO of Huobi was investigated, and Huobi Bitcoin appeared to flood into Binance. Coindesk’s calculations show that from November 2 to November 11, a total of 18,652 bitcoins flowed into Binance from Huobi. Wu said that the blockchain found that, according to Glassnode data, after November 2 Huobi ushered in the largest Bitcoin outflow of the year, and Binance ushered in the largest Bitcoin inflow of the year. Glassnode shows that Huobi’s highest outflow of bitcoins in a day exceeds 25,000; Binance’s highest inflow of bitcoins in a day exceeds 12,000.
There are also opinions that because OKEx does not disclose the wallet address, the data about OKEx’s outflow is not as accurate as Binance and Huobi that disclose the wallet address, and the reference is not strong. In addition, after the panic gradually passed, the Bitcoin data flowing from Huobi to Binance also began to rebound and return. (Blue means Huobi flows to Binance, and orange means Binance flows to Huobi)
Binance has to admit that Binance didn’t do anything, but “lied to win” in this round of investigation. According to similarweb data, in the field of cryptocurrency, the average traffic share of Binance China’s website is 25.6%, and the average daily high is 28.3%, which is an increase of about 5%-10% year-on-year, surpassing Huobi and OK. What’s more troublesome is that the traffic in China only accounts for a smaller part of Binance.
Unlike OK Huobi, the risks that Binance faces may mainly come from the United States, and US regulators are making moves toward cryptocurrency giants. Forbes’ report on Binance’s evasion of U.S. supervision caused Binance’s anger and chose to directly sue Forbes reporters. Binance once again emphasized to Global Station US customers that they will close their accounts within 14 days and require that they choose compliant Binance US for transactions.
Currently, U.S. regulation is playing a game with Coinbase, the largest exchange in the United States. Many people blamed this round of Bitcoin’s plunge. Coinbase believes that the outgoing U.S. Secretary of the Treasury will issue more stringent KYC requirements for cryptocurrencies, making all operating data of cryptocurrencies under supervision, which will seriously damage the industry.
Although the current focus of the United States is on Coinbase and there is no time to follow Binance, the attention of different departments in the United States to the crypto giants and the lessons learned from BitMex still make Binance worry. In August, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) released a list of approved cryptocurrencies. The stablecoins are BUSD, GUSD, and PAX under Binance. There are no USDT and USDC, which also shows that Binance is doing everything possible to seek compliance in the United States. .
With Xu Mingxing, who assisted in the investigation, regained his freedom, this round of investigation seems to be subsiding. OKEx has launched an endless stream of rewards and needs to dispel the doubts about its internal management. Huobi seems to be still in the cloud of investigation doubts. On the 25th, dozens of people assisted in the investigation but refuted rumors. The industry generally hopes that good news can be heard as soon as possible. .
People familiar with the matter revealed that both OKEx and Huobi exchanges have learned from their experience and may develop aggressive overseas expansion. Huobi fully transferred to Singapore under the leadership of Du Jun, and bid with Binance for the head exchange of Japan and South Korea. Despite the existence of “force majeure factors” such as border control, launching an attack on Binance in the global market and reducing its dependence on the Chinese market should be the development direction of OK Huobi.
