Following a series of unsuccessful trades since January, crypto investor and founder of Amaranth Foundation, James Fickle, has lost over $43.7M. The millionaire’s investments crumbled into losses as market volatility prevailed. 

He had placed bets on Ether’s price movement relative to Bitcoin, which sadly did not turn out as he hoped. 

Fickle’s high-stakes bet on Ether leads to $43.7M loss

James Fickle had high expectations for Ether’s price surge against Bitcoin. On January 10, he began borrowing Wrapped Bitcoin, which quickly followed with additional WBTC takeouts. 

In less than 6 months, he had borrowed 3,061 of WBTC, roughly $172M, from the Aave platform and exchanged it for 56,445 ETH at a rate of 0.05424. 

At the time, market conditions were pretty favorable; however, they quickly altered, stirring trouble for Fickle. He adapted by formulating new plans, purchasing more WBTC tokens, and spending 12M USDC to acquire 211 WBTC tokens on August 7.

Later, he used 16,000 ETH to buy an additional 671 WBTC, equivalent to about $39.9M, to settle his debt with Aave at an exchange rate of $0.042 per ETH/BTC. However, this transaction resulted in a loss.

Additionally, the ETH price in relation to Bitcoin plummeted by over 24% on YTD and 9% in August, adding to Fickle’s losses. Cumulatively, he lost over 18,000 ETH, roughly $43.7M from the year’s start.

Fickle still has close to over $400M in crypto. According to the Arkham Intelligence report, the investor has about $399,979,241.05 in crypto holdings. His largest holdings are AETHWSTETH, at 133.518k, worth $381M, and Ether, at 2.036k, worth $4.9M. However, despite all this holding, the crypto millionaire has accrued over $132M in debt, owing the Aave platform. 

ETH/BTC ratio drops by over 20% in just three months

On January 1, 2024, Ether’s price reached a high of $2,352 by the end of the day. However, it is currently trading 2.7% higher at $2,417.

Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum’s performance is on a downturn, with Bitcoin trading at over 40% more than its January 1 opening. Moreover, the ETH/BTC ratio has also fallen 22% over the last three months, reaching a multi-year low of 0.04057 on September 11.

The fall in the ETH/BTC ratio is mainly attributed to the dropping demand for Ether over Bitcoin, with Bitcoin ETFs growing more appealing than spot Ethereum ETFs.