Ethereum whales suffer losses, but some are buying more! – Why?

• The rising Ethereum development activity in the past month came alongside accumulation amongst a particular whale cohort
• The unrealized profit ratio showed some whales faced losses not seen since the previous bear market

Ethereum [ETH] was down 14.36% from Sunday’s high, while Bitcoin [BTC] has fallen 8%. The price action of Ethereum has been more bearish on the daily timeframe since December, while BTC bulls managed to defend the range lows.

This highlights a sign of weakness from the leading altcoin.

Source: Santiment

While the price showed continued weakness, the development activity has stepped up, not just for ETH but for other large-cap altcoins as well.

Analyst Brian observed in a post on Santiment Insights that the dev activity was rising while the market capitalization was falling. Ethereum saw a +13% change in dev activity events and a +1.9% increase in contributors over the past month.

AMBCrypto examined other metrics to see what whales were up to since they have disproportionately more power over the market with their actions due to their size.

The metrics showed whales were hurting and faced losses- but some whales were also accumulating.

Ethereum whale behavior showed there is some hope for…

Source: CryptoQuant

The unrealized profit ratio of Ethereum whales dropped to levels last seen during the previous bear market. CryptoQuant user Darkfrost noted that intense FUD accompanied ETH/BTC’s descent.

Despite prices doubling since July 2022, whales’ profit ratios returned to the same levels. On the 4th of March, 1k-10k ETH holders had a profit ratio of -0.07, while 10k-100k holders had -0.017.

The positive side is these whales are unlikely to sell en masse to realize profits soon. The downside is ETH underperformance could prompt whales to rotate into other crypto assets, increasing selling pressure.

Source: CryptoQuant

The accumulation metric tracked Ethereum holdings across wallet sizes. Wallets holding 100-1k ETH have steadily declined since January 2023.

The 10k-100k ETH cohort has increased their holdings since March 2024, with the trend accelerating recently. Retail addresses saw a sharp holdings increase in early February, but this trend has since flattened.

Meanwhile, whale wallets holding 100k+ ETH experienced a slight downtrend over the past two years.

Overall, the recent whale accumulation signals positive sentiment. Despite challenging times for Ethereum and the crypto market, there may be hope ahead.