Ethereum Whale With Over $60 Million In Unrealized Profits Moves Coins To Exchange

A dormant Ethereum whale has resurfaced, moving their 39,260 ETH worth approximately $87.5 million. According to data from Lookonchain, this Ethereum whale with almost $90 million in ETH recently woke up and decided to move its mountain of digital assets to an exchange. 

Although it is unclear the motive behind this transfer, it appears to be to take profit on a 670% gain over the past five years. 

The crypto market has had another flurry of price increases in the past few days, with Coinmarketcap’s Fear & Greed Index now pointing to an extreme greed of 81. Ethereum hasn’t been left out of the price gains, and the crypto is currently up by 11% in a 7-day timeframe. 

Amidst the price gain, a social media post by on-chain analysis tracker Lookonchain shows that a whale recently deposited 39,260 ETH worth $87.5 million to the crypto exchange Kraken. Further details from on-chain data show that the coins were acquired around June to August 2017. 

During this period, the whale address received 47,260 ETH acquired at an average price of $240 and worth $11.34 million in total at the time. However, the account has remained largely inactive since then, sitting on unrealized profit as Ethereum continued to grow in price. But now, the coins have made their way into Kraken.  

The massive transfer of funds from a whale’s wallet to an exchange typically signals them cashing out some or all of their holdings. In this particular case, the whale would make a profit of approximately $78 million if they decided to sell all their holdings on the exchange. 

An early $ETH whale appears to be selling ETH again after being dormant for 5 years.

The whale deposited all 39,260 $ETH($87.5M) to #Kraken 30 mins ago.

The whale received 47,260 $ETH($11.34M) at ~$240 from June to August 2017.

If sold the whale would make a profit of ~$78M. pic.twitter.com/v0PI4LNTKO

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 5, 2023

A massive transfer of funds naturally leads to speculation within the crypto community, and there seems to be an increasing trend of large ETH holders taking profits. Other social media posts from Lookonchain over the past few days have shown similar cases of large wallets sending their ETH to exchanges. 

For instance, a recent post showed the movement of ETH in wallet addresses belonging to defunct exchanges FTX and Celsius. FTX deposited 3,143 ETH worth $7.2 million on Coinbase, while Celsius sent 7,500 ETH worth $17.2 million to address “0xc450.” 

Galaxy Digital followed suit, depositing 9,179 ETH worth $20.9 million to Binance. According to Whale Alerts, 16,944 ETH worth $38.14 million also made its way to Coinbase from a private wallet.

16,944 #ETH (38,148,363 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Coinbasehttps://t.co/XJYadmioyi

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 6, 2023

Even though Ethereum briefly touched $2,300 yesterday, it would seem the recent transfer to exchanges has had an effect on the price of ETH, as the crypto is trading at $2,269 at the time of writing, down by 1.5%. 

The crypto market remains largely unpredictable, but it would be prudent to wait to see if the crypto approaches and rebounds at the $2,200 resistance level. At the same time, a strong blast above $2,300 could signal bulls are still in control.