ETH

Whale Awakens and $116 Million of ETH Hits The Market

by BSCN

July 19, 2023

chain

Dormant Ethereum whale transfers 61,216 ETH to Kraken, after more than 8 years of HODLing

Untouched for nearly a decade, more than 61,000 ETH (worth $116 million) has been sent from a dormant wallet address to an address linked to centralized exchange, Kraken.

The wallet accrued its significant holdings during a sale carried out by the Ethereum Foundation in mid-2014 but no indicators that they intended to sell this ETH had surfaced until late evening on July 18.

Source: Etherscan

Neither the identity of the holder, nor their motivation for the transfer, have been made available. However, sending cryptocurrency from a self-custody wallet to a centralized exchange can often be a leading indicator of a holder’s intention to sell their assets into the open market. 

It is possible that a sudden liquidation of such large sums of a token could have a negative impact on the asset’s price, depending on liquidity depth. 

What is a Crypto Whale?

A whale is a term used to refer to any individual that holds a large proportion of a certain cryptocurrency - Enough that their holdings could be sufficient to impact the market for that token.

Assets like Ethereum and Bitcoin have a large market capitalization with deep liquidity across multiple markets, so it can take much more selling pressure to influence the market, in comparison to tokens with lower market capitalizations and shallower liquidity across trading venues. 

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