Glassnode published a report on Monday breaking down investors’ on-chain behavior after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. 

The report acknowledged a boost to the number of short-term crypto holders sending their balances onto exchanges. 

Exchange Deposits and Withdrawals

The report echoed findings from last week showing that Binance experienced significantly higher withdrawals immediately following the SEC’s Monday filing. The platform’s Bitcoin and Ethereum balances have fallen by 40,200 BTC (5.7%) and 324,000 ETH (7.1%) respectively over the past 7 days. 

Meanwhile, Binance’s stablecoin balance took the biggest hit, declining by $1.6 billion (20.9%) over the past week. Since FTX’s collapse in November 2022, Binance’s stablecoin balance has fallen a whopping 75% from $26 billion to just $6.5 billion today – largely spurred by another SEC crackdown against its Paxos-issued BUSD stablecoin. 

“The exchange still holds some of the largest reserves of any entity on-chain, and their BTC and ETH balances are still quite substantial,” clarified Glassnode.

Coinbase – which was sued the day after Binance for multiple securities law violations – faced relatively smaller Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals of just 2300 BTC (0.5%). However, Ethereum withdrawals were much more pronounced at 291,000 ETH (8.0%), possibly indicating heightened investor fear around the company’s staking-as-a-service product. 

Behavior By Cohort

Investor behavior surrounding exchanges also seemed to differ by cohort: transactions of under $10 million comprised consistent withdrawals, while those over $10 million were consistent deposits, with net inflows ranging between $15 million to $30 million per d