A dormant Ethereum ($ETH) whale has moved its funds for the first time since 2015, with the transaction sending the funds to an unknown wallet then split the funds into several other wallets, before moving to stake them ahead of the upcoming launch of Ethereum 2.0.
The transaction was first spotted by whale monitoring service Whale Alert, which pointed out the Ethereum whale had been sitting on 1,947 ETH since the year the second-largest cryptocurrency network was launched, 2015. At the time the 1,947 ETH was worth around $2,336, while the funds could now change hands for $5.16 million – a whopping 220,000% change.
The 1,947 ETH were split into several addresses in chunks of 256 ETH each, before being sent to the ETH 2.0 depositor smart contract of Abyss Finance, a service building decentralized finance (DeFi) and centralized finance (CeFi) solutions for users.
The Abyss 2.0 depositor is a tool meant to facilitate multiple deposits into the ETH 2.0 deposit contract in a single batch, and supports hardware wallets such as Ledger and Trezor. Ethereum 2.0, it’s worth noting, is an upgrade to the Ethereum network that aims to improve its scalability and security. It will move ETH from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm to a Proof-of-Stake one.
Depositing ETH into the ETH 2.0 deposit contract allows users to participate in transaction validation of the upcoming Proof-of-Stake blockchain through the Beacon Chain, which currently runs alongside the original Ethereum PoW chain. Participating in transaction validation allows users to earn yield on staked funds for helping secure the network.
The whale’s transaction appears to show it is still looking to hold onto its ETH. Funds staked on the Beacon Chain are locked until Ethereum 2.0 is launched, meaning the whale is simply going to be earning interest on its $5.16 million until Ethereum moves to a PoS consensus algorithm.
The move occurred at a time in which billionaire investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban has revealed he owns “a lot” of Ethereum and Polygon ($MATIC), and in which KPMG Canada, the Canadian branch of one of the “big four” accounting firms, has added both BTC and ETH to its corporate treasury.
Notably, organ Stanley’s wealth management global investment office has published a new report on Ethereum, noting it could lose market dominance to competitors like Cardano ($ADA), Tezos ($XTZ), and Solana ($SOL) over its transaction costs.
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