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Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, recently took to Twitter to provide a list of the most expensive crypto-transactions-by-chain that he was aware of. According to the list he supplied, the Ethereum network's $4.4 billion move between Binance wallets on May 7, 2022, took the top spot.
Did not include transactions to burn addresses; if I did, @VitalikButerin burn of $7B in $SHIB would probably be #1 of all time
— Conor (@jconorgrogan) March 26, 2023
Note: Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Optimism, and others not included due to challenges navigating blockchain infrastructure there (Wen @ArkhamIntel?) pic.twitter.com/WXXeeNtqhp
In the second spot, there was a $1.94 billion move by Binance to cold storage on Feb. 22.
In June 2018, Tron founder Justin Sun made a huge $1.46 billion transfer to the Huobi exchange. This took fourth place. Then in April 2020, $1.1 billion worth BTC moved from Bitfinex for the refill of its exchange hot wallet.
Among these noteworthy transactions is a transfer of $65.53 million worth of XRP from Bitso to Bithumb.
While all of these transactions have a place in history, none stands out compared to Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin's massive 410 trillion Shiba Inu burn.
Grogan stated that if transactions to burn addresses are taken into consideration, Vitalik Buterin's $7 billion might be the biggest of all time. This even surpasses the $4.4 billion ETH move between Binance wallets previously stated. Grogan also says he did not include $13 billion worth of BETH burned back on June 7, 2022, in the list he provided for lack of clarity on the transaction.
Vitalik Buterin's massive 410 trillion $SHIB burn
In May 2021, Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin burned 90% of his $SHIB holdings, totaling around $7 billion, saying he did not want to be a locus of power of that kind. Buterin had been unwillingly gifted half of $SHIB's total supply.
A stash of over 410 trillion tokens was sent to a dead blockchain address in a single transaction, removing them from circulation.
The remaining 10% was earmarked for charitable causes by the Ethereum co-creator.