I have a last days of Mt.Gox deja vu: Also: https://modernconsensus.com/cryptocurrencies/tether/feds-justice-hsbc-account-bitfinex-seized/
A possible explanation of why Bitfinex's BTC is about 5-8% higher than the rest of the exchanges: "The pressure is causing the price to go up (relative to market demand) on bitfinex, and the price to go down (relative to market demand) at all the other exchanges. This is why gap between bitfinex and the other exchanges keeps getting wider and wider. Now assuming that market demand for BTC right now is very bullish, and we expect (pretend) a 10% rise in BTC, then that might look like a 20% rise at bitfinex, and an 8% rise at the other exchanges. The exit of bitfinex is muting a 10% coinbase bull run into an 8% bull run. I think this is what you are asking. To ask the question you may not be asking.... Given the panic at bitfinex, shouldn't the overall market right ow be bearish.... Yes, it should. The fact that it is not has gotten more than a few people asking what the hell is going on. Some say institutional investors, other say FOMO because of the false rise at bitfinex, but who the hell knows. I've given up on trying to predict the future. Luckily your asking me to explain the recently past." More arb talk at:
It's actually really simple. People can't/won't get their cash out of BFX via wire, so they buy crypto. This isn't 2017 arb spreads don't reflect crazy buying but rather counterparty risk.
The same thing happened to Mt. Gox before it went down. That extra 6% is the release fee... Here is a fun thing to do. Here is the Bitfinex cold wallet: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r Currently at 76.9K BTC. But if you copy the address to the Wayback Machine of the Internet you can look up earlier dates, for example: https://web.archive.org/web/2019020...in/address/3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r Apr 30th: 89.4K Apr 19th: 119.5K Febr 1st: 138K etc.etc.
Binance, the largest holder of Tethers, just got hacked for 7K BTCs what is 40 MM at current value. They suspended withdrawals for a week. (this is how exit scams start) https://binance.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028031711
Yep, and they reimbursed the stolen funds from the hacked account. Something that would never happen in an exit scam...
That was Bitfinex, not Binance. And lots of costumers took 30 cents on the dollar because it wasn't clear if they could stay in business or not. So Bitfinex got it easy because they could buy back their coupons cheap. But yeah, the stolen amount is too small for a decent exit scam.