Whale acquires Ethereum in bulk: What’s going on?

Posted: September 22, 2023

• The whale’s latest move involved a withdrawal of 5,040 coins from Binance. 
• On-chain data didn’t show a significant increase in whale holdings.

Whale activity has been a subject of great interest in the crypto space, with analysts and traders keeping a close eye to gain actionable insights. One such interesting move was recently brought to attention thanks to on-chain data.

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Whales hoarding on ETH?

According to a post by Lookonchain dated 21 September, a smart money investor pulled out a massive quantity of 5,040 Ethereum [ETH] tokens from crypto exchange Binance [BNB]. But that’s not all.

The seasoned investor has been on an accumulation spree since the beginning of September, increasing his ETH portfolio by a whopping 24,500 tokens. At going market price, this equated to more than $39 million.

The smart whale withdrew 5,040 $ETH($8.17M) from #Binance again ~20 mins ago.

And the whale has withdrawn a total of 24,548 $ETH($40M) from #Binance since Sept 5, with an average withdrawal price of $1,631.https://t.co/J0BhAsGJhQ pic.twitter.com/xxb6MQ3L19

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 21, 2023

The above findings were backed by another set of data from popular blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant. ETH outflows from Binance have surged on a month-to-date (MTD) basis. Notably, ETH’s value fell during the same time period.

Source: CryptoQuant

Whales, or smart money investors, are well recognized for strategically entering into accumulation mode when prices fall. They use the “Buy the Dip” strategy, which involves adding to an existing long position of a fundamentally strong asset.

The above findings reaffirmed seasoned investors’ confidence in Ethereum’s long-term potential.

Contradicting data emerges

However, this argument was not supported by all corners of the crypto industry. Prominent on-chain sleuth Ali Martinez took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that there was no concrete evidence to suggest that whales were mass-purchasing ETH coins.

Source: @alicharts/Glassnode

His findings were based on data from Glassnode, which didn’t show a notable increase in the holdings of whales in September.

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2023-24

ETH trading in the red

ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, dipped below $1,600 over the last few days, per CoinMarketCap. Atulya Bhat, CMO of Indian cryptocurrency exchange BuyUcoin attributed this to concerns over the Federal Reserve’s tight monetary policy.

The U.S. Central bank left the interest rate unchanged in the recent FOMC meeting but signaled one more rate hike by the end of the year.