An investor who participated in Ethereum’s initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2014 has recently resurfaced to move half of their entire stash of ETH onto popular cryptocurrency exchange Kraken after being inactive for nearly nine years.
According to on-chain analysis service Lookonchain, the Ethereum whale has moved 1,732 ETH worth over $5.15 million to the cryptocurrency exchange, shortly after the price of Ethereum surpassed the $3,000 mark.
The move came after the Ethereum investor purchased 3,465 ETH at around $0.31 per token during the initial coin offering. Their purchase is now worth over $10 million after appreciating more than 960,000%.
The whale’s move comes at a time in which Ethereum has failed to break above the $3,000 mark after the Beacon Chain’s staked Ether reached 30.2 million ETH, which means that around a quarter of Ethereum’s circulating supply is now locked and securing the network, with 943,974 active validators contributing to the network’s security and decentralization.
The decreasing available supply is expected to further drive Ethereum’s price upwards. According to data from Ultrasound money, Ethereum’s supply is currently dropping at a rate of around 0.2% per year. This decrease has led to a drop of 4,700 ETH in circulating supply over the past week.
Moreover, the anticipation of the approval of a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) this year is building momentum. Leading financial institutions, including Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, and Fidelity, have filed to launch spot Ether ETFs, which would allow investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without directly having a wallet.
On top of all this, Ethereum is nearing its proto-danksharding upgrade, which is set to help dramatically reduce transaction costs on the network. The upgrade has gone live on three testnets and is set to go live on the mainnet around March 13.
Featured image via Pixabay.
