An investor who bought Ethereum during the initial coin offering (ICO) started to sell his holdings, gaining more than 650,000% in profits. Despite the large sellout in the open market, Ethereum is still holding above the $2,000 psychological level. Ethereum is able to keep its prices above this level, as there are some other whales who are moving their holdings away from the exchanges into cold wallets.
ETH ICO investor bought Ethereum at $0.31
An Ethereum ICO participant who bought ETH when it was around $0.31 started to sell his holdings. The investor sold 11,552 $ETH ($23.42M) at an average price of $2,027. This whale bought 38,800 $ETH at $0.31, which accumulated to about $12K back then. The current price of the stack of ETH the investor holds now is worth about $80 million at ETH’s current price.
According to Lookonchain, the ICO participant, who goes by the wallet address ‘0xd64A2d50f8858537188A24e0F50Df1681ab07ED7,’ transferred 18,500 ETH to another wallet, which then sold 11,552. For calculations, let’s assume that the whale bought the 11,552 ETH at $0.31. The total spend for buying is about $3.5K.
But the whales sold this Ethereum stack (11,552 $ETH) at $2,027. This accumulates up to $23.5 million. So the profit he made is 650K%. Another ETH early buyer (0xa2F6) sold 15,002 $ETH ($30.97M). This whale previously received 172,700ETH 10 years ago (worth $2.2M at the time, now $356M) at $12.83.
Other whales transfer ETH to cold wallets
When offloading occurs on one side, other whales transfer their holdings from the exchange to external holding places. Another whale created 3 wallets newly and withdrew 54,763 ETH ($118.24M) from the Binance exchange in the past 2 hours.
When whales move their holdings away from the exchange, it usually signals a strategic move rather than a panic sell. They often move or withdraw funds with something in mind. It could be moving funds into cold storage or personal wallets, reducing exposure to exchange risks like hacks, outages, or regulatory issues.
In addition, moving large amounts off-exchange can be part of stealthy accumulation, staking, or preparing for private transactions. This way, they can maintain a low profile while keeping their activity less visible to the broader market. Overall, this behavior often suggests reduced selling pressure and a bullish stance on $ETH.
ETH price holds steady as the buying and selling cancel each other out
It can also indicate that the whales have no intention of selling in the near future. As such, they hold the ETH long-term, taking it off the market to avoid selling pressure and signaling confidence in the asset.
With the buying and selling virtually canceling each other, the ETH prices have been quite stable. It has been consolidating just above the $2,000 level. After taking a huge crash in February, ETH seems to have found a new support level close to $2,000, which has been a resting place for the coin. Despite all this whale activity going on in the market, ETH is still gaining some bullish momentum.
