Ethereum whales gather around as ETH leaps over $2,000

• Whale investors started to book profits as ETH rallied.
• Whale transactions jumped to their highest levels in seven months.

After days of relative underperformance vis à vis Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH] finally gained bullish strength as news of the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock’s potential spot Ethereum ETF application went public.

The second-largest digital asset in the market got a major boost, breaking through the key $2,000 level for the first time since April 2023. While ETH was valued at $1,980 at press time, the market was hopeful of a sustained rise in the near term.

What are whales up to?

As with other cryptos, traders and analysts started to pay special attention to the behavior of smart money investors and whales. This is because the cohort has access to a larger pool of capital and is seen as having a better understanding of the market than retail investors.

According to AMBCrypto’s analysis of Lookonchain data, ETH whale activity spiked dramatically in the run-up to and following the rally.

A particular whale address “0xE4F4”, which was inactive for nearly three years, sent 26,406 ETH to crypto exchange Bitfinex over the weekend.

On the day of the transactions, the transferred supply was worth more than $54 million. The whale booked a handsome profit of nearly $50 million from the trade. Moreover, they still held more than 60,000 ETH in their wallet.

Whale investors were also unstaking their ETH and sending them to exchanges to lock in gains.

A couple of addresses, presumably belonging to the same user as per Lookonchain, withdrew 5,090 ETH from the deposit contract and transferred to exchanges a day after the rally began.

Additionally, a smart whale with a track record of profitability moved 25,700 ETH to Binance just before the rally. As ETH pumped, the investor pocketed gains of $1.5 million.

However, not everyone was selling. Certain whales went on a buying spree, grabbing 3200 ETH coins in the aftermath of the rally.

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Whale transactions at a 7-month high

The on-chain evidence reflected the optimism surrounding ETH. Notably, whale transactions worth more than a million spiked to their highest levels in seven months, according to AMBCrypto’s findings.

Source: Santiment

A marked spike in addresses belonging to the exchanges was also observed. This lent credence to the earlier observations of whales transferring their stashes to book profits.