The story of a secretive cryptocurrency trader has gone viral after the person managed to make $228 million while trading cryptocurrency (Bitcoin/Ethereum). They turned $55 million in cash into $283 million worth of Ethereum cryptocurrency in slightly over one month of trading, a 413% profit that has everyone in the trading world wondering just who in the heck this person is.
According to Bloomberg, news of this person’s insanely successful cryptocurrency trading exploits went viral after an Instagram post. The person behind the trades is only known as ‘0x00A651D43B6e209F5Ada45A35F92EFC0De3A5184’, which is their virtual wallet identification code. I looked that code up and it appears as if the current balance in the account (according to Etherchain) is worth $147,396,802.36. So they’ve either pulled money out of the account or taken a $136 million hit in the past month:
etherchain
The only clue about this person or persons, beyond a virtual wallet with the identification code 0x00A651D43B6e209F5Ada45A35F92EFC0De3A5184, surfaced on a June 11 Instagram posting, in Indonesian, in which he or she (or they) (or somebody posing as them) boasted about the 413 percent profit accumulated earlier this year from ether, the digital money of the Ethereum blockchain.
“I get many private messages asking how much ether I have,” the post read, alongside photos that purported to be the hardware powering a mining operation but looked lifted from another website. “One of the cool things about Ethereum is that all wallets around the world are transparent and open for everyone to see. And this is my wallet’s savings.” (via)
The nature of cryptocurrency means that traders can make millions and millions of dollars without anyone knowing who they are. As noted on Bloomberg, just because this person’s only known identity is ‘0x00A651D43B6e209F5Ada45A35F92EFC0De3A5184’ it does NOT mean they are doing anything illegal. The total value of Ethereum in play right now is $23 billion, and it’s estimated that there are dozens of Ethereum millionaires already out there.
If you’re not familiar with Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies you can check out our ‘What Is The Ethereum Cryptocurrency‘ explainer by following that link.