Early Ether Investor Moves Nearly $90M ETH to Kraken
Moving to an exchange could suggest the investor is likely to sell the asset for stablecoins or other tokens.
Updated Mar 8, 2024, 6:13 p.m. Published Dec 5, 2023, 6:46 a.m.
An apparent large ether (ETH) holder moved nearly $90 million worth of the token to the crypto exchange Kraken after being dormant for five years, on-chain analytics tool Lookonchain posted early Tuesday.
The “whale,” a term for a large holder of any token, deposited 39,260 ether to Kraken in Asian morning hours, blockchain data shows. The address previously received 47,260 ether, worth just over $11 million at the time, from one transaction in 2017.
An early $ETH whale appears to be selling ETH again after being dormant for 5 years.
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 5, 2023
The whale deposited all 39,260 $ETH($87.5M) to #Kraken 30 mins ago.
The whale received 47,260 $ETH($11.34M) at ~$240 from June to August 2017.
If sold the whale would make a profit of ~$78M. pic.twitter.com/v0PI4LNTKO
A CoinDesk analysis of the address shows previous transactions are not tied to the cold storage of any exchange. However, at least one transaction may be possibly connected to an address belonging to trading firm Cumberland, a labeling on data tool Arkham shows.
Moving to an exchange usually means the holder could sell tokens for stablecoins – increasing selling pressure – or convert to other tokens.
Meanwhile, data shows Kraken’s available market depth on ether trading pairs is over $5 million as of Tuesday morning – meaning a buy or sale of that amount could move the market by at least 2%.
Shaurya Malwa
Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.
