Ethereum Whale Capitulates After 3 Years, Losses Top $19 Million

Three Years, One Capitulation

Onchain sleuths flagged the exit, tracking a wallet that had held its Ethereum position since early 2022. The whale accumulated ETH at an average price of $2,723 across purchases made between February 2022 and March 2023, then staked the holdings rather than trading around them (a buy-and-hold approach that outlasted two full bear-market cycles).

That patience ran out this week because the wallet sold 7,323 ETH for roughly $13.96 million, an average exit price far below its cost basis. It’s the kind of capitulation that tends to show up near local price bottoms, when even long-term holders decide the wait is no longer worth it.

Selling 7,323 ETH for $13.96 million implies an exit price of roughly $1,906 per token, close to ether’s spot price of about $1,915 this week, a loss of nearly 30% against the whale’s $2,723 average cost basis (before accounting for whatever staking rewards accrued over the multi-year hold).

In all, trackers put the wallet’s total realized losses at more than $19 million once earlier partial sales are included alongside this week’s exit, meaning the rewards weren’t nearly enough to offset the drawdown in ether’s price since early 2022.

A separate long-term holder disclosed in recent weeks that a position bought at $4,311 and never sold had cost roughly $23.8 million once finally liquidated, while another ether OG offloaded $136 million in ETH and wstETH as sellers tested the $2,000 level.

Meanwhile, Galaxy Digital Moves $87 Million in Bitcoin

In a separate transaction flagged the same day, Lookonchain tracked a newly created wallet receiving 1,346 BTC, worth $87.28 million, directly from Galaxy Digital. The size of the transfer and the fact that it landed in a brand-new address are the kind of details onchain trackers claim are classic over-the-counter (OTC) staging scenarios.

Galaxy Digital has been an unusually active intermediary in bitcoin’s whale-to-whale market this year, repeatedly showing up on both sides of large transfers, i.e. taking in coins from long-dormant addresses in one transaction, then redistributing bitcoin to fresh wallets and exchange-linked addresses in others.

In July alone, the firm moved roughly 2,500 BTC to exchange-related wallets and separately shifted 900 BTC into a freshly created address, moves that onchain watchers read as treasury management or OTC staging rather than straightforward selling pressure.

Whether this latest 1,346 BTC transfer represents a client purchase, an internal custody shuffle, or the early stage of a larger distribution won’t be clear until the receiving wallet’s next move shows up onchain. Interesting few days ahead, to say the least!