While the broader cryptocurrency market recently took a nosedive, some mysterious Ethereum whale successfully escaped with $41 million worth of ETH. Days later, the price of ETH went down, along with BTC and other cryptocurrencies. Did this whale know something the rest of the market didn’t?
Ethereum Whale Sells $41 Million Before Market Crash
In the early hours of August 18, the crypto market saw investors reacting to SpaceX selling its $373 million Bitcoin holdings, pushing down Bitcoin by more than 8% in a matter of minutes. During this period, the crypto market cap dropped to $1.1 trillion, and Ethereum also saw its value plummet by almost 6%.
On-chain data provided by Lookonchain reveals that a smart Ethereum whale dumped 22,341 ETH worth $41 million just prior on August 14. On-chain investigation shows that the whale moved their ETH holdings to the Binance exchange and then withdrew $41 million worth of Tether USDT.
While this whale still made a loss of $1.7 million in the sale, if they hadn’t moved their funds, they would have lost at least $5 million in the crash.
The whale was very smart and dumped 22,341 $ETH ($41M) before the market crashed.
Even though he lost ~$1.7M this time, he successfully avoided the market crash.
Perhaps he will buy $ETH back at a cheaper price in the future.
Follow this smart whale.👇https://t.co/S4Wv8XRlhW pic.twitter.com/BcdzdpmbIA
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 18, 2023
Coincidentally, this isn’t the first time this trader has made headline trades. This savvy Ethereum whale has shown signs of being able to predict market movements before and has had a 100% winning rate in recent months.
The whale profited from the SEC and Spot Bitcoin ETFs saga. When ETH plummeted in reaction to news of the SEC rejecting spot Bitcoin applications from BlackRock and other investment companies, this whale saw this as an opportunity to buy the dip on June 30.
They bought 8,188 ETH worth $15.23 million at $1,860 per ETH, and ETH would later rise to $1948.60 in the hours after.
A smart whale deposited 25K $ETH ($47.24M) to #Binance and withdrew 15.9M $USDT 12 hrs ago.
The whale is very good at buying $ETH at low prices and selling at high prices to make a profit.
He has a 100% win rate of trading $ETH in the past 2 months.https://t.co/dT9p6jeCtr pic.twitter.com/pTuJAwL81O
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) June 28, 2023
Do Whales Sometimes Have Insider Knowledge?
While we can’t know for sure if whales have access to insider information, their actions are worth paying attention to. It could be that this whale knew something was going to trigger a price crash or was just making the right trading decision at the right time.
Nevertheless, whale moves could signal future price action due to the sheer size of their holdings. So by closely following the on-chain activity of major holders, investors might gain useful insights.
The market is still yet to bounce back from the recent dip. At the time of writing, ETH is down by 1.80% in the past 24 hours and down by 10.19% in a 7-day timeframe. Bitcoin and XRP are also down by 11.87% and 19.87%, respectively in a 7-day timeframe.
ETH price jumps to $1,681 | Source: ETHUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com