Dormant ETH Wallet Sends $19.5M, Raising Liquidation Speculation

• Dormant ETH whale moves $20M after 8 years, triggering market speculation.
• ETH price drops 3.5% despite spike in volume and whale activity.
• Exchange data shows bearish tilt, but top traders remain bullish on ETH.

A long-inactive Ethereum wallet has come back after eight years, initiating two major transfers that have captured the attention of blockchain analysts and market watchers. The whale wallet, previously dormant since 2017, executed transactions totaling nearly $20 million worth of ETH within the last 24 hours.

According to blockchain data, wallet address 0x2178602E5a25E5eCa759939c7D56… transferred 10,856 ETH, valued at approximately $19.53 million, to a newly created address, 0x23FB435DD0D25718A80EA105AB63…, through two separate transactions around 13 hours ago. Prior to this, the same wallet deposited 247.93 ETH, or $443,960, into a Coinbase address, along with a smaller 0.0015 ETH transfer.

The movements have sparked speculation over possible liquidation or wallet restructuring. Historical transaction records indicate that this wallet accumulated its ETH holdings eight years ago via large inflows from centralized exchanges including Kraken and Gemini.

One recorded inflow totaled 7,467 ETH, while others varied in the hundreds. At the time, ETH was trading near $226, placing the original investment around $2.5 million. The holdings now represent a profit of over $17 million.

Price Dips as Ethereum Faces Market Pressure

While whale activity often coincides with market shifts, Ethereum’s price has dropped 3.51% in the last 24 hours, falling to $1,722.77. The decline followed a brief rally earlier in the day on April 6 that saw the asset trading near $1,800. After peaking close to that mark, the price began a downward slide that accelerated after 4:00 PM UTC.

The adjustment took place during a massive 10.44% expansion of the average trading volume which is now equal to $8.78 bln; it points to the strengthening of the parties’ activity. Ethereum’s market capitalization is now at $207.89 billion, however the circulating supply has not changed since September and is currently at 120.67 million.

Exchange Data Reflects Mixed Market Signals

Ethereum’s trading volume has increased by over 35% to $28.47 billion, while open interest is also up 1.22%, reaching $20.67 billion. In contrast, options trading volume fell sharply by 25.48% to $249.88 million, suggesting reduced engagement in ETH derivatives.

The current long/short ratio stands at 0.9272, indicating a slightly bearish bias. Despite this, top accounts on Binance and OKX show a stronger long sentiment. Binance’s ratio for ETH/USDT is 4.5279 for general accounts and 5.6667 for top traders. OKX reports a similar ratio of 4.58.

Over the past day, there has been $57.18 million in liquidations from both short and long positions of which $50.48 million belonged to the former. Majority of these happened in the last one day, meaning that there might be current changes in perception within the population.

Analyzing the on-chain data pointed out that there have been on average negative netflows from Ethereum since November 2023. Some of the outflows rose to above $200 million, especially in December and March. Inflows, on the other hand, have just been inflows and these have been erratic with significantly lower amounts.