A mysterious Ethereum ($ETH) whale has been accumulating the second-largest crptocurrency by market capitalization at a rapid pace, adding a staggering 54,721 ETH, valued at $155.7 million, in just 24 hours.
The whale’s accumulation, first spotted by on-chain analysis service Spot On Chain, began with the acquisition of 32,002 ETH for $90 million, including a swap of 60 million USDT for 21,353 ETH and a withdrawal of 10,649 ETH from leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Following this, the investor bought an additional 22,719 ETH, worth $65.7 million, through further withdrawals and swaps on Binance and 1inch. The whale’s accumulation comes at a time in which the price of ETH has been surging, recently surpassing the $2,900 mark.
February has seen Ethereum’s bullish momentum, highlighted by the Beacon Chain’s staked Ether reaching 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.
