Justin Sun has transferred nearly $30 million worth of ETH tokens to Huobi, sparking rumors of a large upcoming sale.
Tron founder Justin Sun has withdrawn $29.7 million worth of Ether (ETH) from Lido Finance and transferred the funds to Huobi. According to data provided by blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence, Sun requested to unstake his ETH tokens from Lido on Wednesday and moved them to Huobi on Thursday.
Following the unstake request, Sun got 15,805 ETH from his Lido address and deposited 15,815 ETH to Huobi, sparking rumors of a sale. So far, the founder has not commented on the transaction or his potential decision to sell his Ether.
Some speculations initially had it that Sun was purposely trying to crash Lido for some reason. However, this idea did not hold any water after it was revealed that Sun still had nearly 290,000 ETH staked in Lido, worth nearly $546 million.
Justin Sun Earlier Deposited 150,000 ETH in Lido
In February, Justin Sun was responsible for Lido’s largest 24-hour staking inflow when he deposited 150,000 ETH. At the time, the ETH deposited was worth $240 million, with the deposit spiking Lido’s total value locked (TVL) on that day.
In response to the deposit, Lido activated its Staking Rate LImit, a protocol safety feature. According to Lido, the Staking Rate Limit is a feature that reduces the total amount of stETH (staked ETH) that can be minted on the platform over a sliding 24-hour window. The safety mechanism helps to protect against possible rewards dilution when there is a large inflow, without completely suspending deposits. Lido eventually balances this reduction gradually on a block-by-block basis.
Sun’s Rumored Arrest and Ethereum Liquidation
In April, LookOnChain data revealed that Justin Sun liquidated some assets, transferring 2,200 ETH to Huobi and Binance. The transactions were connected to rumors of his arrest in Hong Kong. At the time, the tokens were worth nearly $4.6 million.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had announced charges against Justin Sun and three wholly-owned companies for offering and selling crypto securities, including BitTorrent (BTT) and Tronix (TRX). In addition, the SEC allegations included accusations of secondary market manipulation for TRX via wash trading. Furthermore, the SEC said Sun and his companies should have revealed that celebrities commissioned to promote the tokens were compensated. Named celebrities include Austin Mahone, Lindsay Lohan, Soulja Boy, Jake Paul, and Akon.
According to the SEC, “this scheme required a significant supply of TRX, which Sun allegedly provided. As alleged, Sun also sold TRX into the secondary market, generating proceeds of $31 million from illegal, unregistered offers and sales of the token.”
Furthermore, the SEC’s court filing states that Sun made employees complete over 600,00 TRX fake trades, washing up to 7.4 million TRX daily. In addition to Sun, the SEC charged Tron Foundation Limited, Rainberry Inc. (formerly BitTorrent Inc.), and BitTorrent Foundation Ltd.
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