A recently published report has found that only 8% of ether’s addresses hold over one-third of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply, with some ETH holders being ICO participants.
According to CoinDesk, blockchain intelligence firm IntoTheBlock has revealed that ether’s price drop from its near $1,400 all-time high to its current $128 price has seen 90% of its 31.31 million addresses be “out-of-the-money,” meaning they acquired ether at an average price higher than the cryptocurrency’s current value.
A large amount of these out-of-money addresses, CoinDesk reports, purchased their ether in the $211 to $530 range, while 4.77 million addresses bought in between $262 and $352. About 3.58 million bought in between $745 and $1,340.
Only 8% of the total number of ether addresses, the report reads, are “in-the-money,” which means their acquisition price was below ether’s $128 price tag. 1.78% of addresses have an average purchase price equal to ether’s current spot price.
Most of the 2.79 million addresses that are “in-the-money” acquired their funds in the $0 to $130 range, with 4,120 addresses having an average entry cost below $1. This means they likely bought in ether when the cryptocurrency initially launched in 2015 and was trading for a few cents.
One of these addresses, according to Alex Svanevik, a data scientist in crypto Land and the co-founder of data science firm D 5, has been selling its holdings. It moved over 300,000 ETH to cryptocurrency exchanges over the past four months.
Curious who this ETH ICO participant is: https://t.co/mA4mzt1tru
They've dumped (?) almost 300k ETH in the last few months – after hodling 530k ETH since the ICO in 2015.
3 days ago they transferred 60k ETH out of their wallet.
— Alex Svanevik (@ASvanevik) December 16, 2019
The movements likely contributed to ether’s price dropping from its $360 high this year to its current price. In total, 8% of Ethereum’s addresses control 34.05 million ether, worth around $4.5 billion. It’s unclear whether exchange addresses were excluded from these addresses.
Dormant whales being able to crash the market aren’t just on Ethereum, however. As CryptoGlobe reported analysts have warned that a dormant bitcoin whale with 80,000 BTC in its wallet could “crush the market completely” if it decided to sell its stash.