An Ethereum ICO participant who invested $3,100 in 2015 and received 10,000 ETH now holds a position worth approximately $23 million. After nearly 11 years, he has transferred his entire holding for the first time.
On-chain data shows that the wallet received ETH on July 30, 2015, following the network’s initial crowdsale, when the token price was approximately $0.31.
The wallet never moved any funds through every bull market, every crash, and every cycle—until Tuesday, when it... transferred all 10,000 ETH to a new address, earning nearly 7,500 times its original return.
Last September, another Ethereum whale who purchased 1 million ETH in its 2015 ICO transferred $645 million worth of funds from three wallets to a staking service and still holds ETH worth $1.1 billion.
After speaking with analysts at Decrypt, the assumption that a whale staying in one position for a decade means waking up necessarily leads to a sell-off is not guaranteed.
Ilya Otichenko, Chief Analyst at CEX.IO, said: "For those who bought ETH at $0.31, every price increase is a life-changing return, so they may not be as motivated to time the market precisely." Decrypt
The most likely motive for this operation is not price-related. It may be an attempt to recover an old private key or mnemonic phrase, or simply a routine reallocation and consolidation. An inactive wallet being accessed outside of peak hours increases the likelihood that this is a custody or key recovery event.
Bitunix analyst Dean Chen stated that, given the current timing, selling should not be recommended. Decrypt noted that a holder who has been through every cycle since 2015, including periods when ETH prices surged significantly, “has a much longer investment horizon than typical market participants.”
Chen said: "In many cases, these types of operations are less about immediate liquidation and more about portfolio rebalancing, upgrading custodians, estate planning, preparing for over-the-counter trades, or moving idle funds into a more actively managed framework."
Both analysts agree that, from a mechanistic standpoint, this transfer does not pose a real threat to the price.
Otychenko noted that ETH’s daily trading volume is approximately $1.5 billion, meaning $23 million represents about 2% of the primary exchange order book depth—and even if executed all at once, it could be absorbed without significant slippage. “Any sophisticated seller would never do this.”
Chen agreed, stating that unless the funds were directly sent to wallets associated with the exchange, this transfer "is unlikely to cause meaningful structural selling pressure."
The most obvious commonality between the two is the gap between mechanism and narrative.
Autichenko said: "Regardless of intent, the market typically interprets it as a sell signal, which in itself creates short-term pressure. Stories and trades are two different things—but in crypto, stories often become trades."
Chen contextualized this move within broader industry shifts, stating that early ICO holders are entering a phase of "capital rotation, wealth preservation, and professional asset management."
The whale’s shift toward staking rather than exchanges in September fully aligns with this pattern.
Otychenko added that the wave of ICO era activation in 2025-2026 has split, with some early participants shifting their holdings into staking rather than exiting, while others sell in batches but “typically sell only a small portion of their total holdings, not fully exiting.”
He stated that market activity remains significantly below historical highs, “which suggests individual liquidity needs or custody management issues rather than a broad market belief that the cycle has ended.”
In countless a prediction market owned by Decrypted's parent company Dastan, users priced the probability at 47% that ETH's price would drop to $1,500 before reaching $3,000.
According to the data, Ethereum (ETH) is currently trading at $2,330, up 2.4% over the past 24 hours.CoinGecko data