- A lively debate has sprung up this week surrounding a ₿19,108 transfer between wallets
- The transfer was thought to have precipitated this week’s bitcoin sell off, but some think the transfer was mislabeled
- Representatives from various crypto analytics companies argued the point on Twitter
The cryptocurrency world is known for its tribalism and the speed with which simple discussions can get out of hand, and it seems this fractious nature of the space has spread to the usually docile field of crypto analytics. This week, representatives from crypto analytics firms CryptoQuant and Glassnode have been having it out over a big bitcoin transfer, with plenty of others chipping into the debate which, at the end of it, doesn’t seem to have produced a definite ‘winner’.
Bitcoin Transfer – Was It Internal or External?
The lively debate began when a bitcoin transfer of ₿19,108, worth $1.1 billion at the time, was made between one wallet and an exchange on Monday. Three different analytics companies, Glassnode, CryptoQuant, and WhaleAlert, all flagged the move but attributed it differently – CryptoQuant said that it went to Gemini from an outside source and sent an alert to its 28,30 members, while glass Glassnode and WhaleAlert treated it with less importance, flagging it as internal Gemini and Coinbase transactions respectively.
This difference in attribution led to a multi-faceted argument between CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, someone manning the Twitter handle over at Glassnode, and various individuals with something to say on the matter.
Neither was prepared to concede ground, with Ki stating that Glassnode had “provided bogus information” on claiming it was an internal Gemini bitcoin transfer, while adding that WhaleAlert should “not be trusted” because they label Gemini wallets as belonging to Coinbase:
And don’t trust whale alert. They said there were significant outflows although OKEx suspended the withdrawal system.https://t.co/U9abaZhyXb
— Ki Young Ju 주기영 (@ki_young_ju) March 15, 2021
Glassnode weighed in by stating that they stood behind their assertion that “the reported transactions were internal”, giving a technical breakdown about clusters on the Gemini exchange that, frankly, went over our heads:
1/ Addressing yesterday’s exchange data – we remain with our statement.
The transactions in question were not external user deposits into Gemini’s cluster.
This is in accordance with our address labels and clustering information.
— glassnode (@glassnode) March 16, 2021
CoinMetrics Sides With CryptoQuant
Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo also had a say on the matter, posting a lengthy thread that seemed to suggest that CryptoQuant’s reasoning didn’t ring true and invited Glassnode and analysis firm Coinmetrics to comment:
The @cryptoquant_com “data error” debate.
Did a whale send in 18k of BTC into Gemini to dump the markets? Or was it a data error?
This alert was sent out to 28,300 traders warning of whale dumping. Speculators sold off minutes later. pic.twitter.com/OOjRTvXm49
— Willy Woo (@woonomic) March 16, 2021
Glassnode, of course, stuck with their own outlook, but Coinmetrics lead blockchain engineer Antoine Le Calvez stated that the bitcoin transfer was from a BlockFi wallet to Gemini, reinforcing Young’s viewpoint that it was an external transfer:
It’s BlockFi’s wallet
— Antoine Le Calvez (@khannib) March 16, 2021
In the end, the debate seems to have come down to technicalities and how wallets are clustered together. Hopefully now the matter can be put to bed…until the next one. Still, nice to see nerds fighting now and again – livens things up.
