Tens of millions of dollars worth of the leading meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE) has exited Robinhood amid potential legal action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the popular trading platform.
Robinhood Sees Massive DOGE Withdrawals
Robinhood has seen a significant exodus of funds as users rush to pull their Dogecoin holdings from the platform.
According to X-based blockchain tracker bot Whale Alert, a whopping 120 million DOGE tokens — valued at an estimated $18.1 million based on the market price at the time — were transferred from Robinhood to an unknown wallet.
The receiver of this massive transfer, identified only by the address “DDuXG,” is not new to crypto. DDuXG is a Dogecoin whale well-known for making huge moves in the market. Following the latest transaction, DDuXG’s wallet address now holds a staggering 1.92 billion DOGE, equivalent to $292.4 million.
Additionally, on-chain tracking platform Bitcoinsensus revealed on May 8 that 164 million DOGE worth $25 million was transferred out of Robinhood.
These significant withdrawals come in the wake of Robinhood’s legal drama with the SEC.
SEC Preparing To Sue Robinhood
As we reported previously, Robinhood, which only offers 15 cryptocurrencies, including DOGE, on its U.S. platform, received a Wells notice — a preliminary warning from the securities watchdog about potential enforcement action — on May 4.
Speaking recently on CNBC Last Call, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the SEC opted to pursue regulation by enforcement despite the stock trading platform meeting with the SEC 16 times “in good faith” in a bid to register as a special purpose broker-dealer supporting cryptocurrencies.
The attack against Robinhood comes as the SEC has ramped up its regulatory warnings issued toward U.S.-based crypto companies, with the agency recently serving Ethereum development company Consensys and decentralized exchange (DEX) developer Uniswap Labs with Wells Notices.
The lack of federal regulatory clarity has undoubtedly created an uneven playing field for crypto market participants, challenging regulatory compliance and hampering mainstream adoption. Yet, without a clear regulatory framework, regulators will likely continue to crack down on crypto firms in the coming months.
