A long-dormant Ethereum whale has stirred the market by transferring a substantial amount of ETH to crypto exchange Kraken.
This move comes at a time when Ethereum is attempting to bid farewell to its consolidation phase. Over the past day, the second-largest crypto asset has registered a mere 0.41% deviation in price. At press time, it flashed a value of $3452.
Unpacking the whale's move
Data from Etherscan pointed out that the aforementioned transfer broke the 209-day dry spell of this address that participated in the Ethereum ICO in 2015.
Notably, the whale, which originally acquired 254,900 ETH at the ICO price of $0.311 each, still retains a significant portion of these assets, estimated to be worth around $139 million.
This transfer involved 7,000 ETH (worth around $24.28 million). The remaining 40,069 ETH is now roughly worth around $140 million.
Behind the scenes
It is worth noting that the recent surge in Ethereum’s market activity coincides with significant crypto movements by major governmental entities. Particularly, on-chain analytics platform Arkham highlighted recent transactions involving Ethereum by the U.S. government.
U.S. government-labeled wallets transferred 3,375 Ether, valued at approximately $11.75 million, from assets previously seized from Estonian business figures Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin.
Currently, the wallets associated with the U.S. government contain substantial holdings, including 213,534 BTC and 50,524 ETH, valued at around $13.42 billion and $175.9 million, respectively.
The macro picture
Exchange flows remained negative for the most part of last week, indicating that buyers had an upper hand. Over the last couple of days, however, the bars on the chart have been green. This, in turn, justifies why the price of the asset has not been able to initiate another leg up. Only when the outflows start mounting again can the dynamics be expected to flip on the price front.
Source: CryptoQuant
That being said, it is worth noting that the positive catalysts lined up over the horizon for ETH - including the ETF issuers’ S-1 form approval from the SEC - could reverse the tides in its favor and rub off positively on the asset’s price.
