Ethereum ICO Whale Awakens, Moves 2000 ETH Amid Ongoing Recovery

An Ethereum (ETH) Initial Coin Offering (ICO) participant has woken up after more than 8.7 years of staying dormant, a move that has sparked speculations in the broader digital currency ecosystem. 

Ethereum ICO Whale and Selloff Move

The first action orchestrated by the whale according to data from the crypto analytics platform Lookonchain is to transfer the sum of 2000 ETH worth as much as $6.7 million based on the current market price of the digital currency at $3,350 level.

Per the insight shared by Lookonchain, the Ethereum whale bagged the 2,000 ETH coins at Genesis with a price of $0.31. This pegs the sum of ETH received at the time at $620 and the overall growth comes in at 1,080,545.16%.

An #Ethereum ICO participant woke up after 8.7 years of dormancy and transferred 2,000 $ETH($6.7M) out.

He received 2,000 $ETH($6.7M) at #Ethereum Genesis, the ETH ICO price is ~$0.31.https://t.co/Hz1oZPpWKm pic.twitter.com/H1fVKcXJX6

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 24, 2024

It is not uncommon for Ethereum ICO whales to wake up after years of dormancy. What is interesting, however, is the timing of their emergence and the actions taken when they do. This particular whale transferred exactly 1,999 ETH to an unknown wallet rather than an identifiable exchange wallet. 

This private address could imply a move to an OTC desk for liquidation. Another possibility is that the coins were transferred to a staking address or another wallet for further safekeeping. Notably, this whale has started utilizing the wallet with another transaction featuring the ShibaInu.eth name service hours after the Genesis coin transaction had been completed.

Per the data from Etherscan, the whale wallet has a total holding value of $195.07 from 45 tokens in the multichain address.

Suitable Time For the Whale Emergence

The timing for the Ethereum ICO whale emergence is explainable considering the growth the protocol has recorded in recent times.

At the time the whale bagged the 2,000 ETH, the protocol operated as a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus model with miners responsible for transaction validation. With environmental considerations and the need to chart a path forward for more scalability, the Ethereum Foundation transitioned the network to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain through The Merge event.

The developmental work on Ethereum also featured the launch of Dencun Upgrade this month as well as plans to usher in Electra Upgrade to power more data composability. The current Ethereum ICO whale transfer comes at a time when ETH was recovering after dropping from its 52-week high of $4,092.28 to a low of $2,906.58.

At the time of writing, the price of Ethereum is pegged at $3,401.55, up 0.65% in the past 24 hours.