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- There have been new movements in the PlusToken fraud case. 789,585 Ethereum (ETH) were moved from the PlusToken wallet to an unknown wallet.
- Traders are now concerned about the impact on the Ethereum price.
The Ethereum price has been in a persistent downtrend over the past few weeks, although there was a brief rally yesterday in line with general market sentiment. However, a new development in the PlusToken scam could put further selling pressure on the ETH price.
PlusToken could have a lasting impact on Ethereum price
CNF has been following closely the events related to the PlusToken scam which was reported first in the middle of this year. At that time users of PlusToken reported suspicious activities in their transactions. It was later discovered that an undetermined amount were stolen. Although part of the team behind PlusToken was captured, some of them escaped.
As various cryptoforensic experts have determined, PlusToken still has 20,000 Bitcoin (BTC) and 800,000 Ether (ETH) in its possession. A new study published yesterday by Chainalysis confirms this. It also speculates on the impact that the movement of the funds might have had on the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Altough the study does not conclude that the liquidations of PlusToken have caused the bear market, the company claims that PlusTokens liquidations correlated at least over time with Bitcoin’s price drop and caused increased volatility.
Chainalysis also wrote that instead of the 2 to 3 billion USD previously assumed, only 20,000 BTC and 790,000 ETH (currently around 242 million USD) are still in the possession of the fraudsters. According to the report, Chainalysis could only identify about 45,000 BTC and 800,000 ETH as “definitively” controlled and washed by PlusToken.
Now the Twitter account Whale Alert reported a movement of the stolen Ethereum funds. The movement was recorded yesterday, on December 18.
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 789,525 #ETH (105,099,509 USD) transferred from PlusToken to unknown wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 19, 2019
Economist and member of the crypto community, Alex Kruger, commented on Whale Alert’s tweet. Kruger wrote “heads up,” warning of a possible attempt by perpetrators to dump a significant amount of ETH on the market and make a profit.
As a result, there is growing concern that the Plus Token executives could dump the ETH and thus cause a massive price crash for Ethereum. However, the probability that all 790,000 ETH will be flushed onto the market at once seems low when viewed realistically. The scammers would thus harm themselves.
Complications for Ethereum after Istanbul
On the other hand, Ethereum has faced complications after the Instabulhard fork. Although its activation was successful it will be necessary to implement a new hard fork between January 1 and 4, 2020. The activation will occur on block 9,069,000. The goal of the upgrade will be to delay the difficulty bomb that is already affecting the network.
The price of the Ethereum is currently at 126 USD and has made a profit of 7.91% in the last 24 hours. The performance follows the general market sentiment and could mark a change in market trend. However, it remains to be seen how events will develop. The PlusToken scam is one of the biggest concerns for the Bitcoin and Ethereum traders today.
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