Data firm: OKEx saw $113m in Bitcoin outflows just before suspending withdraws

Bitcoin's sell-side pressure began growing earlier today after news broke of the OKEx not being able to process withdraws due to the founder being arrested by Chinese authorities.

His arrest has sparked questions as to why the exchange structured their multi-sig withdraw system in such a way that there is a single point of failure, and has venerated those who believe that decentralized exchanges are superior to centralized ones.

Interestingly, data from Glassnode also reveals that significant sums of BTC were moved off the platform in the 48 hours before withdraws were suspended.

OKEx Bitcoin and crypto withdraws suspended due to Chinese police investigation.

For reasons still unknown, a Chinese police investigation targeted the popular cryptocurrency exchange serving individuals throughout Asia, with the founder getting caught in the crosshairs.

It remains unclear as to when the founder was arrested, but it does appear that there was a flurry of Bitcoin being moved out of the exchange in the 48 hours prior to the recent suspension.

Analytics platform Glassnode spoke about this in a recent tweet, noting that $113 million in total were withdrawn in two large batches just before the withdraw suspension occurred.

"Prior to the suspension of cryptocurrency withdrawals from OKEx, we observed large BTC outflows from the exchange. According to our data, a total of 10,000 BTC were withdrawn in two large batches in the past 48h.".

OKEx founder's arrest highlights serious centralization flaw.

Dovey Wan - a founding partner at Primitive Crypto - mused this recent imbroglio, noting that it strikes her as odd that a major crypto exchange holding billions worth of Bitcoin and other digital assets has such a single point of failure.