Such an investor may be disillusioned about the future of the project, which has not performed well in this cycle. Another hypothesis is that they decided to enjoy life.
Ethereum coin and price chart. Source: Midjourney.
An anonymous investor turned $620 into over $5.1 million by investing in Ethereum, now the second largest cryptocurrency in the market. This means they made $8,720 for every dollar invested.
When analyzed in reais (BRL), the return is even greater given that the Brazilian currency lost about half of its value against the US dollar during this period.
The initial investment was made 10 years ago while Ethereum was conducting its ICO (Initial Coin Offering). Its exit happens while ETH has been operating almost stagnant in the $2,600 range for over a month.
Investor 'abandons' Ethereum after 10 years
Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum conducted a coin offering to finance the development of the project. Many of these early investors quickly disposed of their coins during the first rallies, but some still maintain their investments after a decade.
One of these investors recently abandoned Ethereum, selling more than 2,000 ETH in the open market. The move was captured by Lookonchain.
"A participant in Ethereum's ICO, who had been inactive for almost 10 years, deposited all 2,000 ETH ($5.13 million) on Binance in the last 2 days. They spent $620 to buy the 2,000 ETH 10 years ago — now they are withdrawing for $5.13 million, a return of 8,270 times."
In relation to its peak in 2021, when it reached $4,900, Ethereum is operating down 50%.
Therefore, such an investor may be disillusioned about the future of the project, which has not performed well in this cycle. Another hypothesis is that they decided to enjoy life.
Among the most famous investors in Ethereum's ICO is Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit. In 2024, the entrepreneur revealed that this was his best investment, turning $10,000 into $17.1 million.
Ethereum undergoes update and major team change
Although it is not performing well, Ethereum continues to present new developments to the market. The first of these is the Pectra update, which made the coin operate above $2,000 last month.
In addition, the Ethereum Foundation made changes to the project leadership, placing Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak in place of Aya Miyaguchi, who had been receiving criticism.
Regardless, part of the community has already migrated to cheaper networks both to launch memecoins and to move stablecoins and create tokenized projects.
Therefore, Ethereum needs to accelerate its development to compete with Solana and other smart blockchains. For Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Cardano, ETH will die in the next 15 years.