The Ethereum Foundation sold $340,000 worth of 100 ETH again on November 12 – a controversial activity among Ethereum investors. However, a smart money trader has absorbed 100 times more of this sell pressure in a $34 million purchase.
In particular, the smart money trader bought 10,364 ETH through multiple operations against Tether’s USDT, as reported by Lookonchain. These purchases happened as Ethereum (ETH) aggressively retraced by over 3% this morning, together with all other cryptocurrencies.
Notably, Lookonchain has been monitoring this profitable whale through six different wallet addresses, trading 15 times since August 12. The smart money profited in 14 out of the 15 trades, amassing $4.95 million with a 93% win rate.
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Ethereum Foundation ETH sales
Interestingly, the Ethereum Foundation sold 100 ETH on the same day as the smart trader was purchasing 100 times that. This, of course, neutralized the Foundation’s selling activity, from a market perspective, diminishing investors’ concerns with the sales.
According to Lookonchain, the Ethereum Foundation has sold a total of 4,066 ETH, worth $11.24 million, at an average price of $2,764 this year.
Not long ago, the Ethereum community went on a rampage on X, criticizing the Foundation’s deposit of $100 million worth of ETH to Kraken. Finbold reported that matter and the disclosure of a $100 million yearly budget to fund Ethereum’s development and awareness.
This is a significantly lower budget and selling activity from other popular cryptocurrencies – even more impressive considering Ethereum’s market size. Blockchains like the XRP Ledger (XRP), the Sui Network (SUI), and Solana (SOL) can often face far higher dumps.
For example, Ripple will often sell more than $100 million XRP per month instead of per year. In 2024 alone, the company offloaded over 3 billion XRP, worth more than $1.5 billion at average prices year-to-date. Particularly, November has been marked by Ripple’s largest monthly dump to date, selling 470 million XRP so far.
Ethereum (ETH) price analysis
As of this writing, ETH was trading at $3,231, 17% up against the Foundation’s average selling price. Most of these sales occurred in what we marked as the “accumulation range” in the chart below.
During this period, sentiment was mostly bearish after a significant crash and low-interest moment for the cryptocurrency. However, Ethereum broke out of this range after Trump’s victory, building up a strong momentum upwards and heading to resistance.
In the meantime, the token now faces a corrective movement at the same time Justin Drake unveiled his “most ambitious initiative to date,” as announced on November 11 on X.
“For one year I have been thinking about what a from-scratch redesign of the Ethereum consensus layer could look like. The goal is to suggest a credible strategy to ship what is an extremely ambitious and exciting beacon chain roadmap, all on a reasonable timeframe.”
– Justin Drake
The revelation triggered mixed feelings in the crypto community, with Ethereum investors showing optimism. Meanwhile, competitors believe it is “too late.” DavyCrypto, for example, commented on how other blockchains can already achieve better results than what is proposed.
As things develop, Ethereum’s improvements could attract more demand to its ecosystem, which can positively reflect on ETH’s price. The smart money reported purchase is one example of highly-capitalized investors perception and how these market dynamics can play out.
Featured image via Shutterstock
