Jump Crypto unstakes $315M of ETH, now headed to exchanges

Jump Crypto, the crypto division of Jump Trading, has shifted hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto to exchanges in recent days — sparking speculation that it may be preparing to sell off a huge chunk of its assets.

It includes over 120,000 staked-Ether (ETH) tokens — worth $314.8 million — which started moving on July 24 — one day after the launch of spot Ether exchange-traded funds in the United States.

Data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham shows much of those funds were unstaked at Ethereum redeem address “0x986…608c6” before being moved to Binance, OKX, Coinbase, ByBit and Gate.io deposit addresses.

Crypto sleuth EmberCN estimated approximately $410 million of Ether has been unstak with $191 million of that already entering crypto exchanges. Jump Crypto still holds at least $125.8 million of staked-Ether, including $116.1 million of wrapped-Lido Staked Ether (WSTETH).

Jump Crypto also moved USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT), Ether, Uniswap (UNI) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) to crypto exchanges.

It comes as 15% of the total crypto market cap has been wiped out in the last week.

Community left wondering why

Industry pundits are now speculating on whether Jump is preparing to liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto as more funds move to exchanges.

Liquidating or not, several crypto commentators have slammed the firm for moving the funds over the weekend.

“That means they got ppl to work fuckin SHIFTS dumping their books on an illiquid weekend following the worst stock market day in years. This is a conscious decision to inflict the maximum amount of pain,” blockchain sleuth “Wazz” said.

“[This] perfectly sums up why their crypto operation is such a mess,” added Adam Cochran, partner at venture capital firm Cinneamhain Ventures.

The mass transfers come about five weeks after Kanav Kariya stepped down as Jump Crypto’s President following widespread reports of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigation.

Cointelegraph reached out to Jump Crypto for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.