How to send $1 Billion for $0.63
One of the truly unique things about crypto is that the transaction data on a blockchain is publicly available by default. Anytime someone transfers any crypto from one wallet address to another, the transaction has to be confirmed on the blockchain, and that data is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. You don’t get to know who owns the wallet addresses, but you do get to see the data about the transaction.
Crypto is both completely anonymous while also being completely open and transparent at the same time. It’s quite the dichotomy!
Blockchain Scanners
All blockchains comes with a “scanner” service that allows you to scan through the publicly available data, and confirm transactions that take place. For example, Ethereum has Etherscan, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has BSCScan and Bitcoin has Bitcoin Explorer. This data allows applications to confirm when a transaction has completed on the blockchain, similar to how a credit card needs to be authorized before a transaction is complete.
Gas Fees
When transactions are made on a blockchain, the gas fee (transaction fee) is based upon the blockchain, and how busy that network is at the time of the transaction. If you time your transaction during peak periods of activity, you will typically end up paying more in gas fees than less busy times.
Whale Watching
Because the data is public, some services have sprung up to keep you informed when large amounts of money move around on the blockchain. This type of data is typically hidden in the traditional world of finance, but in crypto, you can get an alert on your phone the second someone moves a large sum of crypto around.
One such service on Twitter is called Whale Alert and I highly recommend anyone that trades crypto to follow this account. Every day, you get to see tens of millions worth of crypto being shuffled around, and every once in a while you get to see a truly massive move. This might mean something is about to happen in the market, or it just means some rich person out there (a whale) wants to move their money around.
On July 1st 2021, an alert was sent from Whale Alert that was truly mind boggling. 10 Million, or even 100 Million was common to see, but this alert showed 1.28 BILLION worth of Ethereum moved from the known Binance wallet to an unknown wallet, for a gas fee of $0.63. This is incredible! How much would it cost to send that much money through a bank? 2%? 3%?
This money could have been sent to anywhere in the world, to any individual, and it would still have taken 1 minute and cost less than $1. This is why the world of crypto is changing the way we do finance today.
This whale likely purchased 1.2B worth of ETH on the Binance exchange, then moved it to their private wallet to get it off the exchange while they hold on to it (called hodling). Hodling benefits investors by simply holding onto an asset as it increases in value over time. To date, Bitcoin has seen 200–300+% gains for anyone that tends to hold it longer than 1 year. So, if you have no intention of selling an asset on an exchange anytime soon, there is not much point keep it there.
Private Wallets
Moving crypto to a private wallet is both the most secure and least secure way to manage money in crypto. By sending crypto to a wallet that only you keep the keys to, you become the bank. You need to keep those keys safe, secure, and accessible. If you lose your wallet keys, they get stolen, or you lose all backups in a disaster; that it. You lost your crypto forever.
However, the flip side of that is that nobody can steal crypto from your private wallet, and you are 100% guaranteed to own your digital assets. On an exchange that trades crypto for you, they technically own the keys, and therefore own your crypto. If that exchange got hacked and someone got access to all the keys for all the crypto, it can all get stolen. Wise investors with a lot of money go through extreme measures to keep their wallets safe for this very reason.
One Confident Whale
Something else to point out with this particular whale is that there was no test transactions done before moving $1.2 billion, which is astounding! This person, whomever it is, created a new Ethereum wallet and just transferred the full amount in one go without first testing it. Since the transactions only cost 0.63 to complete, one would think that a simple test of $10 would proceed this large movement of money. This person must be VERY confident in their ability to copy/paste because if you were to type in the wrong address for a transfer, the crypto disappears and you don’t get it back!
At CryptoAMS we believe that these attributes of Crypto, such as the ability to quickly, cheaply, and securely send money, are why cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, and BNB are the future of finance. Going back to the traditional world of finance where transfers take days to complete, and cost a huge percentage in fees is tough to do once you experience all that crypto has to offer. We are excited to be part of this new world and welcome you to join us with your very own automated crypto-trading bot. Sign-up for our mailing list at CryptoAMS.com for updates on when we are opening up our Beta enrollment!
