$ETH An investor in the ETH ICO project who participated in the project's initial coin offering in 2015 sold 76,000 units of the digital currency, raising speculation about what this means for Ethereum's price. This sale, after a decade of holding the coin, has raised concerns in the digital asset market regarding sentiment among founding ETH whales.
Sale of ETH ICO whales
According to update X from @ai_9684xtpa, Ethereum's early backer bought all ETH for just $0.31 per coin. This former investor has now completed a two-week selling process. The last transfer occurred shortly after the social media platform announced this development. The report shows that 2000 ETH were sent to Kraken for $3.66 million.
Notably, this transfer followed several large transactions. On April 30, an ETH ICO whale transferred 3000 ETH to a cryptocurrency exchange for $5.39 million. Another 3000 ETH went to the exchange on May 2, bringing in $5.53 million. Three days prior, a similar transaction brought in $5.39 million.
The first step in these two weeks involved sending 8,000 ETH, worth about $12.74 million, to another wallet. Smaller movements were also recorded, such as 0.01 ETH worth $15.93.
Another notable transaction involved 6000 ETH, valued at approximately $9.55 million. With ETH trading at $1834.18 on the day of the last transfer, the decade-long holding of the whale paid off. These massive sales often incite panic, especially when they come from long-term holders.
Implications for the price of Ethereum
As of this writing, the price of Ethereum is experiencing slight downward pressure. The coin has retreated from its earlier peak this year, which exceeded $2000.
CoinMarketCap data shows that the price was trading at $1,831.0, marking a decline of 1.72% over the past 24 hours. Along with the intense selling witnessed during the initial coin offering of Ethereum, the overall activity of Ethereum whales indicates continued growth in institutional confidence.
For example, over the past three weeks, Ethereum whales have been accumulating the coin, spending over $1 billion.
However, there are still signs of weakness on the Ethereum price charts. The bearish divergence indicated by the Relative Strength Index (RSI) suggests the possibility of further corrections soon. Analysts expect that if momentum fails to recover, the price of Ethereum could return to the $1400 range, although some still hope for a bounce back to $2000 or even $4000 if market sentiment changes.
Vitalik Buterin's plans for simplicity
In other news, alongside the intense selling witnessed during the Ethereum initial coin offering (ICO), Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, proposed a radical overhaul of the blockchain structure. In a new plan, he aims to simplify Ethereum so that it is as understandable as Bitcoin.
Buterin believes the system is overly complex, leading to high development costs and increased security risks. His proposal involves renewing both the consensus and execution layers.
This includes the shift to a three-slot finality and replacing the Ethereum virtual machine with a simpler model like RISC-V. While this may not immediately impact the price of Ethereum, Buterin expects it to yield long-term benefits and restore confidence in the future of the protocol.
