Whale activity is showing increased focus on ETH, as well as the larger Ethereum ecosystem. Large coin shifts may move into more staking, instead of realizing profits.
Several whale transfers showed a new trend for ETH and major DeFi projects. The launch of an Ethereum ETF is potentially coming within days. Price analysts see this as a factor that may drive ETH to reclaim the $4,000 level.
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ETH recently gained attention for being held in large-scale treasuries from older ICO projects. Analysts are trying to discover the purpose of moving ETH from those treasuries, which may include either selling or staking through third parties.
The past three months have been a period of active ETH whale engagement on the spot market. The behavior of whales is scrutinized even more closely, as ETH is expected to make a major price move.
Whales moving ETH may be testing new forms of staking
One of the recent whale events saw a big wallet withdraw funds from exchanges, locking another large portion of tokens for staking.
It seems that a whale bought 16,074 $ETH($49.24M) in the past week.
This whale has withdrawn 16,074 $ETH($49.24M) from #Bitfinex, #Binance and #Coinbase since July 5 and staked 16,000 $ETH($49M) 30 minutes ago.https://t.co/TFcqJuFu0v pic.twitter.com/FGNKPJRW62
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 11, 2024
With the latest inflows, the balance of the Ethereum staking contract is now more than 47.5M ETH. ETH staking through specific entities may be the most secure way of holding tokens, while also receiving liquid staking tokens for trading.
Binance may also be used as a form of staking, to produce Wrapped Beacon ETH, or WBETH. The WBETH asset is now part of the EigenLayer ecosystem, and enjoys growing attention from traders. This may explain the deposits to Binance, as a tool to acquire a more secure type of staking token. Additionally, Binance also grants 2.85% in APY for staked ETH.
WBETH is tied to one of the most popular Telegram groups for crypto tokens. WBETH is also a highly active token, which often offers arbitrage opportunities. Currently, holders of WBETH can trade at $3,204, surpassing the recent spot ETH price, which fell toward $3,069.56. The potential price action for WBETH may be driving additional deposits to Binance’s staking program.
The presence of WBETH and its potential may explain the behavior of ICOs like Golem, which shared their goal was actually staking. Currently, more than 1M WBETH has been created, based on deposits of Binance. Additionally, Golem recently turned to direct staking from its ICO wallet.
Big buyers turn to the Ethereum ecosystem
Recent on-chain data also reveals whales may be interested in the Ethereum ecosystem tokens. In 2024, DEX trading revived, though still not reaching the hype of 2021. Despite this, most DEX products have been improved and leading projects like Uniswap showed a growth in fees and usage.
Interest in DeFi tokens is growing as some of the projects mark higher quarterly revenues. MakerDAO also joined the trend with peak quarterly revenues of $85M. DeFi apps join the “fat app” trend with the potential to share some of their earnings through token burns.
However, Ethereum-based tokens are the most rewarding for “whales” or big liquidity providers. The recent activity of accumulating tokens like UNI may signal bullish expectations of mode growth in Ethereum-based trading and lending.
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In the past week, Ethereum DeFi also revived, moving up from $51B to $54B in total value locked. Ethereum is also the leader in terms of fees for Q1, with $1B in total fees. Additionally, LidoDAO remains the top producer of staking fees, with more than $90M on a monthly basis.
In the short term, Ethereum gets surpassed by TRON or Bitcoin on a weekly or monthly basis. But when it comes to baseline high-level activity and predictable fees, Ethereum is still the leader.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva