Binance has seen immense activity on one of its Ethereum hot wallets in recent weeks. However, things got heated up on September 21st as a result of high on-chain activity by the Binance 14 wallet.
The hot wallet, in question, spent an astonishing 530 Ether in gas fees, worth around $840k, in a span of just 24 hours.
Data from Dune Analytics’ dashboard suggested that the address processed 146,582 transactions during the same period. As result, the gas fees on the Ethereum network experienced a 5,433% increase from the low of 6 gwei to peaking at a maximum of 332 gwei per transaction, according to Etherscan.
The latest figures even surpassed the one recorded just a week back when Binance 14 spent 388 Ether in gas fees on September 13th. However, the transaction count has been significantly higher than the current figures. In fact, the wallet had then processed the second most daily transactions record of 710,638 after its highest ever 959k on December 9, 2022.
The spikes have been unusually large, considering the gas fee spent by this hot wallet has typically remained below 3 Ether.
Binance has not provided a statement yet, but an update suggests that the crypto exchange was engaged in a wallet aggregation process when the gas fees were low to ensure the safety of user funds.
The latest spike has sparked debate about Binance’s capabilities as the crypto exchange remained in an intense legal battle against the authorities of the United States.
Its CEO, CZ, recently dismissed a report claiming that he received a $250 million loan from BAM Management, the company serving as the holding entity for Binance.US. The exec instead asserted that the loan was the other way around, with him lending the funds to BAM.
Earlier this week, Binance revealed engaging with representatives of law enforcement agencies to explore further collaboration opportunities in a bid to improve crime prevention and investigative capabilities across the world. The crypto exchange was also invited by the Hong Kong Police to the International Symposium on Cyber Policing 2023.