Ethereum ICO Whale Moves $116 Million Worth of ETH to Kraken

An Ethereum whale has reactivated a dormant wallet that has been holding ETH tokens since the ICO in 2014. After purchasing 61,216 ETH tokens nine years ago, the early Ethereum investor has now decided to move the entire holding to the Kraken exchange.

Moving cryptocurrency from cold storage to an exchange is often a sign that the holder intends to sell. The whale’s 61,216 ETH tokens are worth $116,555,264 at the current market price.

The whale’s nine-year-long investment in ETH has certainly produced a good return. From the Ethereum ICO price, which was just $0.31, the whale has enjoyed 614,224% gains from an initial $18,976 investment.

The wallet used to transfer the funds to the Kraken exchange had been untouched since Ethereum’s genesis. There were a total of 2910 days between transactions, during which time the total cryptocurrency market capitalization (TCAP) rose from $6 billion to over $1 trillion.

Could the whale’s transaction impact the ETH price?

While the Ethereum whale’s transfer of funds from cold storage to Kraken may be alarming for short-term traders, the 61,216 ETH tokens are unlikely to influence price action to any significant degree. The whale’s $116.5 million transfer equates to only 2% of the total daily volume, with over $5.26 billion worth of ETH being traded so far today.

While such a large transfer of value is certainly noteworthy — especially when a long-dormant wallet has been activated — liquidity levels in the ETH/USD markets are deep enough to soak up the sell pressure for this particular transaction.

The price of ETH remains steady, with the price up less than 1% on the daily timeframe. The CoinCodex price prediction algorithm predicts a 5% upwards move from ETH over the next 5 days.