The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, Binance, announced that it would list Rocket Pool (RPL) on its Innovation Zone today. However, the timing was laced with suspicious activity. An anonymous wallet bought 6193.46 RPL tokens 10 minutes before the Binance announcement. Moreover, the wallet sold the tokens 10 minutes after the exchange announced the listing. The trade, which lasted 20 minutes, led to a profit of $55.4k.
The Ethereum (ETH) and USDT used in the purchase have been traced back to the exchange OKX. At the time of publication, according to Etherscan statistics, the address had roughly 255,397 USDT.
Moreover, Wu Blockchain mentioned that another wallet purchased 5,353 RPL within 30 seconds of Binance’s announcement. The wallet spent around 188,000 USDC to make the purchase. Wu Blockchain notes that the wallet made a profit of about 15,000 USDC.
Binance involved in insider trading in the cryptocurrency market?
Naturally, the transaction has drawn attention and generated debates regarding insider trading in the cryptocurrency market.
Binance announced plans to list RPL at 4:00 am UTC. Rocket Pool is Ethereum’s second-largest liquid staking service by total value locked (TVL). As per DeFi Llama statistics, users have more than $860 million in ETH invested in the protocol. Furthermore, RPL’s price increased by as much as 50% in response to the announcement of its listing on Binance, reaching a 24-hour high of $42.78, according to statistics from CoinMarketCap.
Meanwhile, Binance’s chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann revealed that the top cryptocurrency exchange maintains a tight policy prohibiting staff members from selling cryptocurrency holdings shorter than 90 days after acquisition since 2021.
The executive claims that the cryptocurrency exchange has a staff that upholds this rule. Nonetheless, the cryptocurrency community is left confused about the two wallets and their RPL transactions.
At press time, RPL was trading at $35.45, up by 10.3% in the last 24 hours.