Ceffu, Binance’s institutional custody partner, moved $263.8m (£?) worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum from the exchange within 30 minutes on 24 August, after first depositing 136.54m USDC.
On-chain analysts reported that the company transferred the stablecoin to Binance before withdrawing 1,524 BTC, valued at about $117.89m, and 59,484 ETH worth approximately $145.92m.
The movements took place in a single half-hour window and involved assets with a combined value of $263.8m. Neither Binance nor Ceffu has said whether the transaction was carried out for one client or formed part of a wider adjustment to its custody holdings.
Ceffu, formerly known as Binance Custody, provides institutional investors with segregated cold-storage and settlement services. Its infrastructure uses multi-party computation technology alongside a configurable multi-approval system, designed to allow several parties to authorise transactions without exposing a single private key.
The company has also increased its presence in the institutional market this year. Among its recent developments is its role as institutional custody partner for EOS Network’s advanced custody and CeDeFi offering.
The latest transfer follows another substantial movement between Binance and a Ceffu-controlled address in July. Across 12 separate transactions over a 30-day period, 3,000 BTC, then worth roughly $192m, moved from Binance to Ceffu.
Large withdrawals by a recognised custody partner are generally viewed differently from funds leaving an exchange for an unknown or privately controlled wallet. When assets move directly from an exchange balance to an identified institutional custody address, the activity is more commonly associated with settlement, portfolio rebalancing or accumulation on behalf of major clients.
As a result, the transaction does not necessarily indicate that investors were taking a bearish view of Bitcoin or Ethereum. However, the precise purpose of the latest withdrawal remains undisclosed.
The transfer came during Bitcoin’s strongest weekly performance since March 2023. Bitcoin had risen by about 22% over the week after United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the department would at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks.
The policy move pushed yields lower and helped restore demand for riskier assets, including cryptocurrencies. On the same day, United States President Donald Trump met representatives from the crypto industry, including executives from Coinbase Global and Payward, and called on the Senate to pass the Clarity Act.
The rally also prompted traders to close approximately $3bn in leveraged bets against Bitcoin over three days. Liquidations across the wider cryptocurrency market reached $4.5bn during that period.
Grayscale said Bitcoin’s sharp weekly rise could represent a turning point after a relatively shallow bear market, citing comparisons with previous market cycles.
