On Tuesday, the consistent sideways price movement of Bitcoin (BTC) came to an abrupt halt. Bitcoin's price saw a boost of approximately 8%, reaching a peak of $28,000. This spike was attributed to Grayscale's legal victory over the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). On-chain data now reveals a significant inflow of BTC to crypto exchanges shortly before this triumph for the crypto asset manager.

$822 Million in BTC Directed Towards Exchanges

Last year, Grayscale took the US regulatory body to court after it was denied permission to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). The Court of Appeals in Washington DC has now ruled that the SEC failed to provide adequate reasons for the rejection of the ETF application. As a result, the financial regulator will have to reassess its earlier decision.

In the lead-up to this pivotal judgment, nearly 30,000 BTC was transferred to addresses associated with centralized crypto exchanges. At the current BTC rate, this significant chunk holds an astounding value of roughly $821 million.

Noted analyst, Ali Martinez, highlighted this massive inflow on X (formerly known as Twitter). He also pointed out that, as a result, the Bitcoin supply on exchanges rose from 1.13 million to 1.16 million BTC.

Cryptocurrencies are typically sent to exchanges either for selling or to be used as margin for derivative trading. Hence, a surge in inflow to exchanges is often considered a precursor to price volatility.

Is Bitcoin Being Manipulated? 

Crypto analysis platform, Santiment, commented on X suggesting that it "seems quite evident that known powers were aware of the inevitable boost in crypto market capitalization."

Data maintained by the South Korea-based CryptoQuant indicates that the mean inflow - the average amount of BTC per transaction directed to exchanges - climbed to 1,146 BTC, the highest since June 21st. However, the average outflow also soared to a two-month high, causing the net balance of BTC on exchanges, particularly those offering spot trading, to drop.