Anonymous Wallet Buys Over 6k RPL Minutes Before Binance Listing

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The purchase has renewed insider trading concerns at the leading crypto exchange.

An anonymous crypto wallet purchased about 6193.46 RPL 10 minutes before Binance listed the token and sold 10 minutes after the listing, according to a tweet from 0xScope today.

The entity involved made a $55.4k profit from the 20 minutes trade.

💰An anon wallet buys 6193.46 $RPL 10 minutes before #binance listing announcement and sells it 10 minutes after.

It makes $55.4K in just 20 minutes.

Address:https://t.co/4IPsypF07H pic.twitter.com/6pVWa4Djbl

— 0xScope (🪬 . 🪬) (@ScopeProtocol) January 18, 2023

Notably, prominent crypto news dedicated Twitter account Wu Blockchain shared the development hours later, adding that it has traced the ETH and USDT used in the transaction to OKX. Etherscan data shared by the crypto news account reveals that the address holds about 255,397 USDT at press time.

The anonymous wallet address (0x5f…47db) bought 6193.46 RPL 10 minutes before Binance released the RPL listing announcement, and sold them all 10 minutes after the announcement, making a profit of 55,400 US dollars. The USDT and ETH used are all from OKX.https://t.co/xtrxxQx9BS

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 18, 2023

Unsurprisingly, the trade has raised eyebrows and sparked discussions about insider trading in crypto.

It bears mentioning that Binance announced plans to list RPL at about 4 am UTC today. For context, RPL is the utility and governance token of Rocket Pool, Ethereum’s second-largest liquid staking provider by total value locked (TVL). DeFi Llama data shows that users have over $860 million in ETH staked in the protocol at the time of writing. 

#Binance will list @Rocket_Pool $RPL in the Innovation Zone.

➡️ https://t.co/RzkGibwpVU pic.twitter.com/4ZHN7u1aFQ

— Binance (@binance) January 18, 2023

Reacting to the Binance listing announcement, RPL’s price surged by as much as 50% at some point, forming a 24-hour high of $42.74, according to data from CoinMarketCap. However, it is exchanging hands for $35.05 on mainstream exchanges at press time, up 9.79% in the last 24 hours.

Notably, it is not the first time a Binance listing has raised insider trading concerns. Last October, an anonymous wallet purchased over 2 million OSMO less than 24 hours before the crypto exchange announced it was listing the token.

Meanwhile, Binance’s chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann 8 days ago confirmed that the leading crypto exchange since 2021 has had a strict policy that prevents staff at any level from selling crypto holdings less than 90 days after purchase. According to the executive, the crypto exchange has an internal team that enforces this policy.

“It is the quickest way to get fired here,” Hillmann wrote.

This has been a strict policy at Binance at least since I started here in 2021. We have an internal security team that monitors multiple platforms for possible employee trading activity and it is a zero tolerance policy. It is the quickest way to get fired here @WuBlockchain https://t.co/nBpKVadsTG

— Patrick Hillmann (@PRHillmann) January 10, 2023

The crypto community is left wondering if the suspicious RPL transaction is sheer luck or the handiwork of an insider. At press time, neither Binance nor its chief executive officer Changpeng Zhao has released a statement addressing the concerns.

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