In brief
- A Bitcoin whale connected to wallets holding $5 billion in BTC is dumping some holdings for Ethereum.
- The holder deposited at least 2,000 BTC on Hyperliquid, selling it in batches for ETH.
- Other Bitcoin whales have played a similar trade of late as ETH rose to a new all-time high price.
A major Bitcoin holder deposited 2,000 Bitcoin—worth more than $216 million—to Hyperliquid’s exchange and methodically sold it into Ethereum, according to data from network block explorer Hypurrscan.
The address ending in “eCb43” first received 1,000 BTC worth around $108 million across two transactions around 10:57 a.m. ET this morning. Shortly thereafter, the account began selling small batches of Bitcoin for Ethereum, often selling 1-1.5 BTC at a time and purchasing the corresponding amount in ETH until its Bitcoin was exhausted.
It later re-upped with another 1,000 deposit, following the same playbook before ultimately transferring all of the Ethereum—more than 42,750 ETH—out of its wallet.
On-chain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence has connected the address to others that collectively hold $5 billion worth of Bitcoin, and one that deposited at least $800 million worth of Bitcoin to Hyperunit on August 24. Hyperunit is a platform that allows native tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum to be deposited and ultimately traded on Hyperliquid.
“A whale holding over $5 billion of BTC is currently buying ETH. He just moved $1.1 billion of BTC to a new wallet and has started purchasing ETH through Hyperunit/HL,” Arkham posted on X. “This whale bought $2.5 billion of ETH last week, and he’s still buying.”
Last week, a Bitcoin whale played the same trade, opting to swap some of its BTC for a levered $75 million worth of long positions on ETH.
Bitcoin whales have been coming alive of late. One Bitcoin billionaire recently made the largest transfer of “old BTC,” or coins which haven’t moved in 10 years, in history when it transferred more than $8 billion worth.
Later, that same Bitcoin OG cashed out more than $9 billion of the top crypto asset, selling more than 80,000 Bitcoin acquired in the Satoshi-era via crypto asset firm, Galaxy Digital.
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are trading around 4% lower on Friday, changing hands for $108,196 and $4,318, respectively.
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