Weeks Before The Merge, Ethereum ICO-era Whale Address Reactivated

Weeks before the Merge is set to happen, an Ethereum ICO-era whale address was reactivated and sold 145,000 ETH.

A month before the Merge, there were a lot of ETH transactions, which aroused the community’s attention. Some people said it was a dump, while others thought it may have been done for staking.

Weeks Before The Merge, An Ethereum ICO-era Whale Address Reactivated

After three years of hibernation, an Ethereum (ETH) whale wallet that took part in the Genesis Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and earned roughly $150,000 in 2014 was reactivated on August 14.

As the price of ether soared to a new 3-month high of nearly $2,000, the whale address sent 145,000 ETH to many wallets. A few transactions of more than 10,000 ETH were made in addition to a batch of transfers of 5,000 ETH each. The wallet address presently holds 0.107 ETH in its balance, with a total transfer value of almost $280 million.

The whale wallet was only used twice after the ICO; the first time was in July 2019 when it transmitted 5,000 ETH to the Bitfinex3 exchange while ETH was valued at $219, for a total transaction value of slightly over $1 million.

Community Comments

Community comments to the transfer of such a large quantity of ETH included claims that it may have been a dump before the Merge, which marked the formal switch from the existing Proof of Work (PoW)-based blockchain to a Proof of Stake (PoS) one. It’s vital to remember that the majority of transactions, as opposed to exchanges, are made to unidentified wallets.

A $250 million selling pressure isn’t deemed big enough to start a market crash, even if the whale finally decides to sell their 145,000 ETH. Others think the whale may be attempting to stake their ETH in an effort to join the PoS network as a validator and earn passive revenue.

Sell the news mega dump coming pic.twitter.com/EkG4BDIsVp

— Trader WhiteBeard (@SHlROIHI) August 15, 2022

After a successful merging of the Goerli testnet to the Beacon chain (a PoS chain activated in 2020), the last practice before the actual switch, Ethereum’s move to a PoS-based network is scheduled on September 15.

One of the biggest updates for the second-largest cryptocurrency since its launch in 2015 is the Merge in September 2022. After various setbacks and the integration of the testnet, the three-phase transition process that started in 2020 is now ready for the formal PoS transfer in the third week of September.