- ETH’s supply on exchanges has risen 5% since Dencun.
- Whales were shorting ETH on exchanges.
Ethereum [ETH] extended its losing streak by plunging 9% over the last 24 hours.
The second-largest cryptocurrency has remained in the red since the activation of Dencun Upgrade, with weekly losses stretching to 18% at press time, as per CoinMarketCap.
Whales are cashing out
Wider market sell-offs were being witnessed, raising fears of a reversal in ETH’s bullish trend.
According to on-chain data tracker Spot On Chain, three whales reportedly liquidated a total of 26,946 ETH in the past four days to book nearly $40 million in profits.
Of note was one of the investors who transferred 8,870 ETHs to Binance on the 16th of March. The price of ETH at that time was $3,733. Selling fetched the whale a total profit of over $25 million.
AMBCrypto investigated other datasets using Santiment to gauge the broader market reaction.
Notably, ETH’s supply on exchanges rose 5% since Dencun. Around the same time, key whale wallets, such as those holding between 10,000–1 million coins, dropped considerably.
The analysis of these two indicators suggested that whales were profit-taking.
Source: Santiment
These could be the factors
Typically, seasoned investors cash out when they don’t spot a positive catalyst for the asset in question.
Crypto investment services company Matrixport recently suggested shorting ETH against Bitcoin [BTC] longs. The suggestion was rooted in two factors.
First, with Dencun executed, one of the biggest triggers for ETH’s growth was now behind us.
Secondly, the odds of spot ETH exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval were reducing with each passing day, something which AMBCrypto also reported previously.
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These reasons could have very well prompted whale investors as well to go bearish on ETH.
This was further exemplified through Hyblock Capital’s Whale vs. Retail Delta indicator. As seen below, whales lowered their long exposure drastically over the past week.
Source: Hyblock Capital
