Dormant Ethereum Whale From ICO Era Wakes Up To Deposit Millions To Kraken — Sell-Off Incoming?

An Ethereum whale wallet that participated in the Genesis initial coin offering was recently activated after more than six months of dormancy. The whale address transferred 7,000 ETH to the Kraken crypto exchange.

It’s unclear what the whale plans to do with their ETH holdings, but once it’s on an exchange like Kraken, it can potentially be sold on the open market.

Ancient ETH Whale Sends $24 Million In ETH To Kraken

An unknown Ethereum whale initiated a monstrous transfer to Kraken.

On-chain data shows that the wallet was part of Ethereum’s public crowdsale in 2015, with the owner securing their tokens at an ICO price of approximately $0.311 per token. The wallet address transferred 7,000 ETH, equivalent to $24.30 million, to Kraken today.

The whale’s prolonged period of dormancy, which lasted for 209 days, drew attention to the transfer. This whale still holds a substantial 40,069 ETH worth about $139.6 million.

The wallet owner’s identity and reason for moving the funds to Kraken remain unknown, but the latter could be due to several factors—such as a change in investment strategy or simply seizing a chance to cash in on Ether’s price growth.

Impact On ETH Price

This stash exemplifies the massive return on investment accrued by early Ethereum adopters. It also stresses the substantial impact on price dynamics and sentiment such deep-pocketed entities can have on the market when they decide to sell their holdings.

This is not the first time this year when whales, as the holders of enormous amounts of cryptocurrencies are otherwise known, have transferred funds lying dormant for years.

In mid-June, a long-dormant Bitcoin address that was inactive since 2018 moved 8,000 BTC worth around $540 million to Binance. Another notable transaction occurred in March when an ICO-era wallet that had been inactive for 8.7 years suddenly awakened to move 2,000 ETH.

Interestingly, the latest colossal transaction coincides with a period of growth in Ether, with the price climbing to $3,415 as of press time. The second-largest crypto by market cap has experienced an increase of 5.7% over the past seven days. It remains to be seen whether the whale transfer will trigger a bearish trend reversal in the near future.