Reddit may have debunked the top doge.
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts on the site think Robinhood – the investment app that was central to last month’s GameStop stock frenzy – owns a digital wallet filled with nearly $ 2 billion in dogecoin.
The account – which controls about 29 percent of all dogecoin currently in circulation – came into the spotlight this week after Tesla chief Elon Musk raised concerns about “concentration” in ownership of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.
A user named “AndreiFromAlberta” claimed to have solved the mystery in a lengthy post on Reddit’s dogecoin-focused message board.
The wallet in question was created in February 2019 – about seven months after Robinhood began offering dogecoin transactions – and received large amounts of dogecoin from other accounts that appear to be linked to Robinhood, the post said.
“It’s almost certainly Robinhood,” Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist of blockchain data company Elliptic, told Bloomberg News, which reported on the speculation on Wednesday. “The timing of the creation and creation of the addresses from which it has received money matches the timing of Robinhood’s support of Dogecoin.”
Musk himself seems to support the theory. In response to a tweet Tuesday stating that Robinhood may be the owner of the wallet, he said, “Sounds like it is.”
Account balances have exploded in value as dogecoin’s price has risen from less than a cent at the start of the year to about 5 cents as of Thursday, even though the digital coin had started as a joke.
If the wallet is from Robinhood, it is probably only being used for storage purposes. The California-based startup says it uses its own wallets to hold the cryptocurrencies that users buy and own through its platform.
But Robinhood declined to say whether it is the dogecoin whale.
“Like other crypto platforms, for operational security reasons and to protect customer privacy, we will not confirm which addresses are or are not ours,” the company said. said in a statement posted it on Twitter Wednesday.
Robinhood also said it is not currently investing in cryptocurrency or using its clients’ cryptocurrency for its own benefit.
A Robinhood spokesperson declined to comment further.