Whale sells 33.5K Ethereum coins for $85M while institutions buy more

An Ethereum whale has been caught unloading over 33,000 staked ETH while the institutions are scooping up some more of it. This comes in when Ethereum price surge is finally beating Bitcoin’s performance over the last week.

The biggest altcoin, Ethereum, saw a jump of more than 3% in the last 24 hours, while BTC price remained up but marginally. The global crypto market cap jumped slightly to hit $3.38 trillion in the anticipation of tariff war resolution. Despite the recent sell-off, the fear and greed index flashes “neutral” sentiment among the investors.

ETH up 7% as whale sells big

As per the data shared by Lookonchain, the whale in question, who originally bought 132,536 ETH for $333.79 million, offloaded 33,585 stETH for $85.38 million USDC. The sale came at an average price of $2,542.2, according to on-chain trackers. Despite this offloading, it still holds 100,000 ETH (approx. worth $260 million), much of which is staked.

The whale has reportedly realized over $30 million in profit overall. The address is potentially linked to Alliance DAO, suggesting this move might be more of a portfolio rotation than a bearish signal.

Whales/Institutions are buying $ETH.

Wallet 0xFC82(probably linked to Cumberland) withdrew 34,883 $ETH($89.45M) from #Binance in the past week.

Wallet 0x3c9E withdrew 7,200 $ETH($18.37M) from #Kraken in the past week.https://t.co/fqx0FAPCaPhttps://t.co/VmJwGGRsLJ pic.twitter.com/hzIrgyrO8X

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 9, 2025

Meanwhile, other institutional actors appear to be aggressively accumulating Ethereum. Wallet 0xFC82, possibly linked to Cumberland, withdrew 34,883 ETH (approx. worth $89.45 million) from Binance in the past week. However, Wallet 0x3c9E withdrew 7,200 ETH (approx. worth $18.37 million) from Kraken. A rise in whale holdings signals that the smart money isn’t exiting ETH, but it’s stacking more.

Ethereum price has surged by around 7% over the last 7 days, on the other hand, Bitcoin price jumped 1%. ETH is trading at an average price of $2,616 at press time. Its 24-hour trading volume hovers around $18 billion. Meanwhile, Ether is still down by 46% from its all time high of $4,891, recorded on November 16, 2021.

ETH whale holdings spike 9%

According to Glassnode data, mega whale wallets holding at least 10,000 ETH have increased their holdings by 9.31% over the past nine months. That’s a jump from 37.56 million ETH in October 2024 to 41.06 million ETH as of July 2025. This marks the highest concentration of ETH among large holders since 2020. The scale and timing of these large-scale purchases suggest institutional actors may be preparing for a potential breakout.

This doesn’t look like a retail FOMO as a major support zone has now formed between $2,500 and $2,536, where over 3.45 million ETH has recently changed hands. This zone may now act as a price floor.

Glassnode also shared that the SOL/ETH ratio has peaked at 0.0868 in April and has since declined to the mark 0.0586. This is being seen as one of the lowest levels this year and suggests an underperformance for Solana. Meanwhile, the past 7 days show that $8.3 billion of new capital has flowed into Solana against $6.2 billion into Ether.

The #SOL/#ETH ratio peaked at 0.0868 in April and has since declined to 0.0586, one of the lowest levels this year, signaling $SOL underperformance. Yet, in the past 7 days, new capital inflows were similar: $8.3B into SOL vs $6.2B into $ETH, with SOL showing stronger momentum. pic.twitter.com/8ooyyH7Qbl

— glassnode (@glassnode) July 8, 2025

Amid the accumulation, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is reportedly preparing a new initiative to save Ethereum’s soul. While details remain under wraps, speculation suggests upgrades aimed at fixing decentralization and governance concerns. In his new blog, Vitalik shared why he used to prefer permissive licenses and now favors copyleft.