Recent on-chain data shows that Ethereum whales are selling ETH. Whales are dumping a large amount of ETH at the same time. Is this a signal to flee the top?
According to a tweet earlier today (5th) by on-chain data analyst Yi Jin, yesterday, Cosmos developer Interchain Foundation sold 4,000 ETH raised in the ICO in April 2017, worth approximately US$9.5 million.
Interchain has sold a total of 15,100 ETH in more than five months since the end of April this year, worth approximately US$37.09 million. Ember stated that the foundation also holds approximately 383.8 BTC and 23,587 ETH.
Embers added, including the portion that has been sold and those that have not yet been sold, that the 4882.7 BTC and 246,891 ETH raised in Cosmos’ 2017 ICO have skyrocketed from an initial value of $17 million to a current value of $213.1 million.
Ethereum whales collectively dumped their holdings
This week, on-chain monitoring accounts discovered that several ancient Ethereum whales transferred large amounts of ETH to exchanges:
In early October, a whale who participated in the Ethereum ICO transferred another 6,000 ETH to Kraken, with a total value of approximately $14.71 million. The whale has sold 30,000 ETH in the past week, and has sold 45,000 ETH (approximately $113 million) out of the 150,000 ETH he received from the ICO.
Another ancient whale who hoarded 21,636 ETH at $6.9 in 2016 sold all of it on October 1, earning 58 million U (387 times)
Another whale withdrew 29,414 ETH (worth $74.49 million) from Coinbase at $2,532 at the end of August, and completed the sale of the last 7,000 ETH (worth $17.68 million) on the 1st, eventually selling all ETH at $2,605, realizing a profit of $2.3 million.
The whale who redeemed 24,000 staked ETH from Lido on September 27 has sold all 24,000 ETH within 4 days, and also liquidated the 4,980 ETH he had previously purchased, worth US$76.45 million, and made a profit of US$2.09 million.
There is still no strong reason to explain why various big whales have recently chosen to collectively dump their goods. The community speculates that it may be that the old OGs have sensed some market atmosphere, but more observation is still needed.
The report of the Dynamic Zone this week speculated that due to the overall economic environment, external war factors, and the influence of competing public chains, it is unlikely that a large amount of hot money will flow into Ethereum and drive up the price in the short term. Therefore, the whales chose to ship at this time, perhaps due to conservative expectations and uncertainty about the overall economic environment.
ETH has only risen by 1% in the past month, far inferior to BTC
With the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by two basis points last month, officially launching a cycle of rate cuts, Bitcoin has risen by 9.6% in the past month, breaking through the $65,000 mark at the end of September and trading at $62,197 at the time of writing.
In comparison, Ethereum has only risen slightly by 1% in the past month. Although it broke through the $2,700 mark last month, it was suspected to be affected by massive selling pressure from whales. After entering October, it fell to a low of $2,310, a drop of more than 15% from last month's high. It was reported at $2,419 at the time of writing.
ETH price fell in October. Source: OKX
Is Ethereum bearish in the short term?
Many recent Ethereum development and community news indicate that the short-term outlook may not be optimistic. The Ethereum Foundation and co-founder Vitalik have been criticized by the community for frequently selling coins; Danny Ryan, a core figure in the Ethereum Foundation who was mainly responsible for The Merge, resigned last month, and Ethereum can be said to have lost a major developer.
The conclusion of the Ethereum core developer meeting last month pointed out that due to technical difficulties, the Pectra hard fork cannot be upgraded in one go, and will be upgraded in two phases. The first will be completed in early 2025, initially introducing eight proposals such as EIP-7702 to improve the wallet experience. However, it is certain that the first upgrades are relatively small improvements and are not the main content of the Pectra hard fork. The second phase is the focus, which will introduce the EOF proposal to improve the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and introduce the PeerDAS function. However, the core developer meeting has not yet reached a conclusion on the specific upgrade time.
In addition, recent analysis has pointed out that the so-called staking rewards are actually a "cost" for the blockchain and will dilute the value of the token.
