An Ethereum (ETH) whale wallet transferred 1,45,000 ETH on 14 August 2022. The total value of the transferred ETH exceeds $280 million. The development is significant especially because we are only a month away from the much anticipated Merge, Ethereum’s official transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
The whale address had obtained most of the ETH by taking part in the Genesis Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in 2014. On Sunday, the sum was transferred to multiple wallets, and the transfers were made in batches of 5,000 ETH per transaction. A few transfers did exceed 10,000 ETH. The wallet address currently holds only 0.107 ETH.
This was only the second time the whale wallet was used after the ICO. The one transaction that had taken place before this was three years ago, in July 2019, when the user had sent 5,000 ETH to the Bitfinex3 exchange.
ETH community concerns over the transfer of 145,000 ETH
Given the soon approaching Merge, the ETH community is more vigilant than ever before, and the recent movement of such a large amount of ETH transfer caused quite a stir.
Some claim it was an attempt to instigate a mass dump before the Merge. However, it is important to note that most transactions went to unknown wallets rather than an exchange. Even if the whale decides to sell their 1,45,000 ETH, a $250 million selling pressure isn’t considered significant enough to cause a market dump.
Others believe that the whale is attempting to stake their ETH to become a validator on the PoS network and generate passive income.
All of this is only speculation though, and only time can reveal the intention behind the transfers.
