Data shows a Litecoin whale has made a large deposit to Binance, something that could extend the cryptocurrency’s current decline further.
Litecoin Whale Deposits Big To Binance As LTC Suffers Post-Halving Plunge
Yesterday, Litecoin finally completed its much-talked-about third halving event, meaning that the cryptocurrency’s block rewards have once again been halved from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC.
While the event had some hype behind it, it turned out to be a “buy the rumor, sell the news” type of deal in the end, as the asset’s price has taken a notable hit since the event has taken place.
At the time of the halving, LTC was floating around $91, but after the selloff, the coin dropped to $86, which suggests a plunge greater than 5%.
LTC has gone down since the halving event | Source: LTCUSD on TradingView
The entire cryptocurrency market is in the red today, perhaps as a result of the news that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has been considering filing fraud charges against Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange based on trading volume.
Litecoin, however, is still the worst performer among the top coins by market cap, as the halving-related selling pressure has been unique to it.
Pain may not have ended for LTC investors just yet, though, as data from the cryptocurrency transaction tracker service Whale Alert shows a whale has made a hefty deposit of almost $26 million to Binance.
🚨 🚨 300,000 #LTC (25,998,888 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Binancehttps://t.co/YTVqhlF827
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) August 3, 2023
The transaction had come from an unknown wallet, implying that it was likely the whale’s personal wallet. Generally, one of the main reasons why investors transfer their coins from their self-custodial wallets to exchanges is for selling-related purposes, so this transfer could be a sign that the whale intends to sell their coins.
Naturally, given the large scale of the deposit, the market could feel a noticeable bearish effect from it. That is only, of course, if the whale truly planned to sell here.
Given the timing of the transaction, though, the whale may have believed Litecoin could extend its drawdown further, so they could be exiting before their coins lose any more value.
Litecoin Ranks Number Two On Bitpay Payment Count List
Not all news has been negative for LTC recently, as the official X account of the cryptocurrency has tweeted about the latest monthly transaction count data for the cryptocurrency payments processor BitPay:
Looks like LTC is second on this list | Source: Litecoin on X
Bitcoin is still the number one cryptocurrency in terms of usage on BitPay, but Litecoin has caught up over the last few months and is right behind it now. Both these assets are significantly ahead of others like Ethereum and Dogecoin.
LTC’s growth on the platform is a sign that the asset is observing more adoption as a mode of making payments, which isn’t too surprising given that one of the main selling points of the coin is its cheap and fast transactions.