An early Ethereum ICO whale — the account that bought 1 million ETH in 2015 — has moved about $645 million worth of ETH from three wallets into a staking service, on-chain trackers show. Despite the transfer, the address still holds roughly $1.1 billion in ETH.
The activity was flagged by on-chain observer EmberCN. The transfer comes amid rising investor enthusiasm for Ethereum, driven by growing institutional interest and large inflows into ETH exchange-traded funds following crypto-friendly regulatory developments.
At the time of reporting, Ethereum was trading just below $4,300, down slightly on the day but up more than 71% over the past three months and not far from last month’s record above $4,900. A Myriad Linea prediction market shows about 73% of participants expect ETH to top $5,000 before 2026.
Macro factors have added fuel: a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs print increased the odds of an earlier rate cut and pushed risk-on flows. Max Shannon, senior research associate at Bitwise, told Decrypt that “risk-on assets have screamed higher, as the DXY and USTs tank,” and noted the whale move is consistent with declining ETH balances on exchanges and some recent profit-taking.
Why this matters: large deposits into staking remove liquid supply from the market and can be a structural bullish signal over time. At the same time, short-term direction is uncertain — ETF flows have cooled and investors may rotate into other high-performing tokens, which could limit upside despite a historically strong BTC–ETH correlation (0.79).
Investors should view this as one of several supply-and-demand signals rather than definitive proof of future price moves. Market rotations, macro events and liquidity dynamics can all change the near-term outlook.
Source: Decrypt. Read the original coverage for full details.