After six years of inactivity, an Ethereum whale came back to life, moving nearly 8k ETH tokens worth over $15 million, as per the crypto intelligence portal EmberCN.
The anonymous account holder in issue received 50,000 ETH from an ICO participant back in 2017, and between May 30 and June 14, 2017, transferred 36,000 ETH to the Kraken exchange, with a potential average selling price of $255.
The last whale activity, that garnered such attention, was in early June when a large-scale ETH investor quickly sold 10,265 ETH worth $19.1 million at an average selling price of $1,861.
Data provided by leading data platform Lookonchain showed that the trend coincided with the crypto market drop, brought on by the SEC’s crackdown on Coinbase and Binance.
The regulator’s clampdown on two of the biggest crypto exchanges triggered a sharp rise in the NetFlow volume of deposits and withdrawals from exchanges at the beginning of June.
Ethereum’s balances on exchange plummeted reaching an all-time low while staking deposits keep surging.
According to data provided by Glassnode, Ether reserves fell over 12% in the past 30 days as investors were spooked by centralized platforms.
Ethereum On Exchanges At All-Time Low
Decreased supply on exchanges is typically a bullish sign because it indicates there are fewer tokens that can be sold easily.
The size of withdrawals and the bullish price action, however, are reminiscent of the levels in November 2022, when Ethereum quickly increased by almost 33% in response to a comparable decline in exchange balances.
In addition, after April’s Shapella upgrade, the supply of ETH locked-in staking contracts has risen considerably. Over 23 million ETH, or 19.1% of its entire supply, are currently held in staking contracts.
According to Glassnode’s data, approximately 30% of ETH’s supply is being held in smart contracts, such as staking and decentralized financial contracts, up from 25.5% at the beginning of 2023.
Increased deposits into smart contracts and withdrawals from exchanges are good for ETH’s price since they lower the amount of liquid supply available.
At press time, the price of Ethereum stands at $1,881, edged down by 1.7% but has risen nearly 9% in the past week. Per Coinmarketcap, the Bitcoin rival’s 24-hour trading volume stood at $7 billion with a market cap exceeding $226 billion.