A newly created wallet turned into an ETH whale after buying the recent dip. The buyer appeared after nearly $80M in long liquidations for ETH.
Whale activity remains significant for Ethereum (ETH), as whales are buying the dip. One newly created wallet withdrew 50,256 ETH from the Binance hot wallet, in tranches of 3,000 ETH. The whale started filling up the new wallet in the past 24 hours, after being first funded by a known Binance hot wallet.
The whale started buying during one of the periods of rapidly sliding prices for ETH, when the asset wiped out more than 12% of its price. Its average entry was at $2,265 per ETH, starting from the beginning of the price slide. The whale activity suggests a rebound may be on the way, with predictions of a 25% price rally.
The whale held only ETH valued at $112.8M, with a minimal amount of WETH. Buying ETH often precedes various forms of staking or usage as collateral to tap the current value and unlock liquidity.
Whales have also switched from panic-selling and liquidation to ongoing slow accumulation with the expectation of long-term ETH growth. Overall, whales have switched to accumulation since the end of 2024, with relatively small profit-taking in the past weeks.
ETH shows signs of local lows
The buying activity sets up expectations that ETH may be done with its downward correction, after nearly $80M in long liquidations in the past 24 hours.
ETH open interest fell over the weekend following market volatility and liquidatoins, sliding to $14B from a recent level of $16B. Long positions are still over 75% of open interest, suggesting more liquidations could be instore.
ETH traded at $2,239.78, sliding under its recent range. However, even ETH price crashes have led to additional buying from whales, with the goal of achieving a lower average price. ETH also rebounded from its lows against Bitcoin, once again returning to 0.022 BTC.
Ethereum holders flock to big DeFi protocols
Ethereum is becoming the playground of whales, with liquidity flowing to the top protocols.
Based on DeFiLlama data, the Ethereum chain now locks around $57B in total value, with $125.67M in stablecoins.
However, DeFi protocols are dominated by the three big sources of ETH passive income. LidoDAO holds over $20B, while Aave returned above $19B TVL. EigenLayer holds over $10B in ETH.
The other DeFi protocols holding over $5B in value include Ethena, Ether.Fi and Spark. Lending remains near its peak, leading to whale accumulation and deposits into major protocols. ETH accumulation also follows the recent Pectra upgrade, as whales prepared for running the new larger nodes requiring 2,048 ETH.
At the current price range, DeFi remains relatively safe from liquidations. Whales have rebuild lending positions with a high accumulation of liquidable loans at around $1,600, and another significant accumulation just above $1,000.
For ETH, the current price action suggests more dips are possible, with most of the liquidable long positions at around $2,100. Liquidating short positions could bring ETH back above $2,300. For now, the overwhelming attitude for ETH is bearish, though still allowing for the occasional whale accumulation.
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