Key Points
- Ethereum has seen a significant increase in whale activity in recent months.
- The uptick is attributed to the approval of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Whale Activity on the Rise
Ethereum has been experiencing a considerable increase in whale activity over the past few months.
The data provider, Santiment, published a report indicating that the surge in activity was due to rumors and the eventual approval of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Spot ETF Approval Fuels Activity
On May 23rd, the SEC approved 19b-4 forms for ETF applications submitted by several firms.
This approval came as a surprise after a prolonged period of refusing to communicate with issuers.
According to Santiment’s report, whale wallets holding at least 10,000 Ethereum coins have increased their cumulative holdings by 27% over the past 14 months.
This group of Ethereum holders purchased 21.39 million Ethereum coins, valued at $83 billion at current market prices, during this period.
Santiment stated, “Ethereum has even gained on Bitcoin (by percentage) over the past month after the rumors and eventual approval of the first Spot ETH ETFs were announced by the SEC. So it’s no surprise to see that the whale accumulation has not come to an end.”
Regarding daily whale transactions involving Ethereum, Santiment noted that after the spot ETF approval last week, the number of Ethereum whale transactions exceeding $100,000 and $1 million surged to year-to-date highs.
On the day of the approval, Ethereum transactions valued above $100,000 reached 7,649, while those exceeding $1 million totaled 1,252.
Santiment noted that this surge was due to an increase in profit-taking activity among the coin’s large holders.
Despite the increase in whale activity since last week’s approval, daily transactions involving Ethereum have been profitable.
AMBCrypto assessed the daily ratio of the altcoin’s transaction volume in profit to loss (using a seven-day moving average) and found that it was 1.87.
This means that for every Ethereum transaction that resulted in a loss in the last week, 1.87 transactions returned a profit.
At the time of writing, Ethereum was trading at $3,865, according to CoinMarketCap’s data.
