Ethereum Surges to $3,400, But Major Whale’s $224M Profit-Taking Triggers Market Slump

While Ethereum bulls emerged today, propelling ETH back to the $3,400 range, significant selling pressure has hindered its price ascent.

Recent analysis shows that a long-standing holder of Ethereum emerged to dump a large number of ETH tokens after the asset pumped by 10% today.

Market watcher Lookonchain drew attention to this development in a recent disclosure, revealing that a whale was engaging in a continuous selling spree of ETH after being inactive for nearly a decade. Today alone, the whale cashed out nearly $4.5 million worth of ETH.

Details of the ETH Tokens Under Liquidation

Notably, the ETH tokens offloaded by this whale today in the $3,300 per token range were initially acquired at $6 per ETH back in May 2016. According to the report, this investor had committed $2.4 million to acquire 398,889 units of Ethereum at the time. However, eight years later, the value of this holding ballooned to a staggering $1.34 billion.

This investor held the ETH across 28 addresses over the last eight years with no activity. He first became active again two weeks ago, on November 7. At that time, Ethereum’s market value was around $2,895. While significantly below its peak valuation, the whale began selling nonetheless, converting the tokens into USDC stablecoin.

Today, the whale liquidated 13,623 ETH as the market value of ETH rose to $3,428. After eight rounds of sales over the past two weeks, the seasoned investor has profited over $224 million from Ethereum and still holds $1.1 billion worth of ETH tokens.

Ethereum Price Reacts

This whale’s selloff spree has contributed to the recent ETH pullback. After briefly reclaiming the $3,400 mark today, Ethereum’s price has already dipped by 5.4% to $3,250 at press time.

This bearish reversal further adds to ongoing concerns among market participants about ETH’s performance, particularly as it continues to lag behind Bitcoin.

Ethereum was about to cross $3,400

Suddenly a whale with $1 billion dollars in ETH that they bought at $6… decides to sell

Ethereum is cursed

— borovik (@3orovik) November 22, 2024

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is in a price discovery phase in the $98K range, while Ethereum is 32% below its all-time high. During previous bull seasons, Ethereum closely followed Bitcoin’s performance, but now it is lagging, even with the presence of ETFs.