With ETH falling below $3,000, whales are back to accumulation. For now, the market does not show signs of capitulation, as ETH holders still resort to staking and lending.
ETH whales are back to accumulation and rebuilding positions at a lower level. As ETH slid to the $2,800 range, whales returned to buying. That range serves as a support level and is the price at which most whales built positions over the past years.
The ETH purchases happen through both exchanges and OTC markets. One of the recent buyers acquired ETH through an OTC desk, later moving the tokens to Lido for liquid staking. The whale acquired ETH through Wintermute’s OTC desk, which did not help the token on the open market.
For now, ETH remains range-bound, meaning some whales can use liquid-staked tokens to secure loans and buy more ETH. The move is relatively risky for liquidations, but more experienced users are managing the risk.
Liquid staking has been growing in the past weeks, recovering from local lows. As of January 26, liquid staking protocols hold over $43B in value locked.
World Liberty Fi returns to buying ETH
World Liberty Fi is actively trading its portfolio, switching from BTC to ETH positions. The known wallet of World Liberty Fi is switching up DeFi positions for wrapped tokens.
Recently, WLFI switched from WBTC to ETH, going through the CowProtocol router. The wallet performed several trades, leaving WLFI with over 22K ETH. For now, the tokens have not been sent back to staking.
WBTC has generally decreased its balance to 125.33K, as it lost its weight in decentralized finance. Yield for WBTC on Aave is also extremely low, while ETH is more usable within the DeFi ecosystem.
OG whale goes long on ETH
The whale that shorted the market on October 10 is now stuck with a large-scale long position. The recent whale activity showed confidence in ETH returning to growth, but left the trader with large unrealized losses of over $779M.
In addition to the Hyperliquid positions, the OG whale has also created a borrowing loop for ETH.
Recently, a new wallet linked to the same whale withdrew ETH from Binance, deposited it to Aave, and continued buying with borrowed funds. The move shows significant confidence in ETH retaining its price range and not leading to liquidations.
Despite the downturn, ETH sentiment remains neutral at 40 points. ETH open interest is inching up to $16.28B from a local low of $15.78B. More than 75% of traders are going long and are threatened by liquidations during a downturn. On Hyperliquid, only 51% of whales are long on ETH, betting on a deeper downturn.
ETH has seen an outflow of retail users, but whales and large-scale stakers are still a major source of buying and activity. Retail sentiment remains lower, but accumulation and DeFi usage remain at relatively high levels.
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