Dormant $1.14 Billion Ethereum Whale Awakens: Begins Selling After 8 Years

A massive Ethereum whale with over $1.14 billion worth of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization on their wallet has recently started selling TH after being dormant for the past eight years.

According to data shared by on-chain analysis firm Lookonchain, the cryptocurrency whale has a total of 398,891 ETH in their wallet, and has started moving some of these funds to cryptocurrency exchanges in a bid to sell. So far, 13,400 ETH worth $37.38 million have been sold.

The whale, according to the firm, started accumulating ETH through decentralized exchange ShapeShift back in early 2016, when the cryptocurrency was trading at just $3.5 per token, through at least 28 different wallets the firm identified.

These 28 wallets then all moved their funds to new wallets in August 2016, before becoming dormant over the next eight years. With a recent 6.8% surgei n ETH’s price, the whale started selling.

A whale with 398,891 $ETH($1.14B) began selling today after being dormant for over 8 years!

In the past 6 hours, 13,400 $ETH($37.38M) has been sold at an average price of $2,790.

We identified 28 wallets that all started accumulating $ETH from #ShapeShift in January 2016, at an… pic.twitter.com/cy4C0EmuJh

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) November 7, 2024

The whale’s $1.14 billion Ethereum war stash suggests the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization could face increased selling pressure in the near future, which could lead to lower price performance.

The cryptocurrency has underperformed when compared to the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin. According to CryptoCompare data, while BTC is up more than 111% over the last 12 months, ETH moved up around 49% over the same period.

Bitcoin’s performance can be partly explained by the success of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) launched earlier this year, which have been seeing record volume, compared to the lackluster performance of the spot Ethereum ETFs.

Moreover, the recent Trump victory on the US elections was widely expected to help boost crytpocurrency prices, as the former U.S. President has expressed strong support for the cryptocurrency sector, meaning the regulatory outlook could improve through the reduction of regulatory ambiguity and the appointment of more crypto-friendly officials to key positions, for example.

Featured image via Unsplash.

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