$ETH In early May 2025, the Ethereum (ETH) market witnessed two opposing trends from whales, creating both risks and opportunities for investors.

1. Contrarian actions of ETH whales

✅ Strong accumulation:

  • A whale bought 3,029.6 ETH (5.74 million USD) despite incurring a loss of 142,000 USD due to the price drop to 1,842 USD/ETH.

  • On May 1st, many whale wallets collectively bought thousands of ETH within 2 hours (according to Lookonchain), showing confidence in long-term potential.

❌ Selling pressure:

  • On May 2nd, a whale deposited 2,680 ETH to Kraken, incurring a loss of 255,000 USD (OnchainLens).

  • On the same day, another wallet transferred 3,000 ETH to Kraken to sell.

  • Notably, a whale that participated in the 2015 ICO sold 6,000 ETH, making a profit of 10.92 million USD.

  • Another whale increased its short position to 10,000 ETH (~18.4 million USD), predicting a price drop.

2. Market context

📉 Price volatility:

  • ETH increased by 10% over the week but slightly decreased in the past 24 hours, around 1,842 USD (lower than the peak of 2,500 USD in March 2025).

  • Trading volume decreased by 10%, reflecting the hesitant sentiment of retail.

📈 Positive signals:

  • ETH investment products attracted 183 million USD in inflows last week.

  • Spot ETH ETF recorded 6.49 million USD in inflows (on May 2nd).

  • Ethereum's TVL reached 52 billion USD (DefiLlama), leading DeFi.

3. Risks & Opportunities

🔴 Risks:

  • Selling pressure from whales and large short positions could push prices down in the short term.

  • Competition from Solana (attracting developers due to optimized experience).

🟢 Opportunities:

  • The current price may be an accumulation point before ETH breaks out (similar to Bitcoin in 2020).

  • The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade and the development of Layer 2 (Arbitrum, Optimism) support long-term prospects.

4. Strategies for investors

  • On-chain monitoring: Balance between accumulation and liquidation by whales.

  • Risk management: Set stop-loss orders if trading short-term.

  • Long-term focus: Ethereum remains the leading platform for DeFi and NFTs.

"ETH is repeating the price structure of BTC in 2020. If history repeats, a strong rally could occur" - Merlijn, Analyst.