Starknet (STRK), an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution has seen a surge in exchange deposits. The hedge fund manager Three Arrows Capital was liquidated by a British Virgin Islands court after prices plunged and the entity was unable to repay creditors.

Three Arrows Capital’s liquidator Teneo deposited 2.18 million STRK tokens to centralized exchange Binace in the past three days.

STRK price extends gains despite rising exchange deposits

STRK token’s largest non-team holder wallet is Three Arrows Capital liquidator Teneo. Teneo deposited 2.18 million STRK tokens worth approximately $2.63 million to Binance this week. The liquidator still holds 130 million STRK, worth approximately $157 million, in its wallet.

Crypto on-chain intelligence tracker Spotonchain identified the move and shared details of the on-chain transaction in a recent tweet on X.

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STRK deposits by Teneo

Typically token deposits to centralized exchanges push asset prices lower as they contribute to selling pressure on the cryptocurrency. However, in the case of STRK, the token sustained nearly 10% gains from the week and rallied over 3% on Saturday, on Binance.

Teneo could deposit more STRK tokens to exchanges in the coming weeks as the liquidator controls $157 million in STRK.

Data from crypto intelligence tracker Santiment shows that STRK’s social dominance has waned since the beginning of May. Social dominance metric scores the asset on its mentions across social media platforms like X, and identifies the dominance of the token in crypto-related discussions.

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Social dominance of STRK

Another catalyst likely driving the STRK price rally is Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s unlock and claim of 845,205 STRK tokens worth $1.07 million on Friday.

Vitalik Buterin

Vitalik Buterin claims STRK

At the time of writing, STRK price is $1.246 on Binance. The token ranked in the top 15 most searched assets on Binance on Friday, per data from CryptoDiffer.