A mysterious cryptocurrency trader has placed a substantial bet on Ethereum’s Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, borrowing nearly $12 million in stablecoins since August 11 to accumulate over 4,459 ETH.

The aggressive buying spree, conducted through decentralized finance (DeFi) exchanges, was first spotted by on-chain analysis service Lookonchain, which noted on the microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter) that the trader was liquidated for over $8 million worth of tokenized ETH during the market crash earlier this month.

The trader has now borrowed 6.6 million DAI tokens, as well as 2.7 million USDT and 2.5 million USDC – all of these stablecoins – to buy nearly $12 million worth of ETH at an average price of $2,646.

A whale who was liquidated for 2,890 wstETH($8.06M) during the market crash on Aug 5 is back to buying and going long $ETH again!He has borrowed 6.6M $DAI, 2.7M USDT and 2.5M $USDC to buy 4,459 $ETH($11.8M) at $2,646 since Aug 11.Address:… pic.twitter.com/5bCmZNpkyc

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 13, 2024

The trade comes shortly after another cryptocurrency trader paid a whopping $92,000 to move around $2,300 worth of Ethereum on the blockchain, despite the average Ethereum transaction fee currently being of around $2.1.

Notably Ethereum has been significantly underperforming Bitcoin, with  the ETH/BTC ratio, a key indicator of the relative strength of the two cryptocurrencies, plummeting to its lowest level since April 2021, reaching a precarious 0.044.

According to data shared by leading institutional digital asset data provider CCData, ETH has been consistently underperforming Bitcoin. Meanwhile ETH rival Solana has bucked the trend, with the SOL/ETH ratio steadily climbing to now be near a new all-time high.

Chart of the Week: #Ethereum has significantly underperformed vs #Bitcoin, with the ETH/BTC ratio reaching its lowest level since April 2021, at 0.044.Meanwhile, the SOL/ETH ratio continues to trend upwards, nearing its all-time high. pic.twitter.com/fZxeHpoQpL

— CCData (@CCData_io) August 6, 2024

Featured image via Unsplash.