A giant whale that has been dormant for seven years transfers over 92,000 ETH, causing Ethereum to briefly drop below $3,100

Author: Mary Liu, BitpushNews

After the strong U.S. GDP data and cooling personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation data were released on Thursday, the crypto market and tech stocks failed to rebound.

The GDP data released on Thursday showed that the U.S. economy grew by 2.8% in the second quarter of 2024, exceeding economists' predictions of 2%. The inflation pressure measured by the PCE price index fell from 3.4% to 2.6%, indicating progress towards the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation target.

James Knightly, an economist at Dutch Bank, stated that U.S. consumer spending will slow down in the second half of 2024. He added, "Business surveys certainly indicate a weak outlook, and today's data did not shake the market's confidence in a rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September."

According to the FedWatch tool from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), rate traders raised the likelihood of a rate cut in September to 85.7%.

By the close of the day, the major U.S. stock indices were mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.20%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices fell by 0.51% and 0.93%, respectively.

Bitpush data showed that Bitcoin fell below the support level of $65,500 early Thursday morning, hitting a low of $63,420 in the afternoon, before bullish forces pushed it back above $65,000. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $65,857, with a 24-hour increase of 0.43%.

Ethereum saw a nearly 5% drop over 24 hours, briefly falling below $3,100 on the day, and has declined 8.2% over the past week since the listing of the spot Ethereum ETF.

The altcoin market saw widespread declines, with only Galxe (GAL) among the top 200 tokens achieving an increase of 15.4%, trading at $3.55. Among the declining tokens, BinaryX (BNX) led the drop with a 19% decrease, followed by Blast (BLAST) down 15.2%, and ether.fi (ETHFI) down 14.2%.

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization is currently $2.3 trillion, with Bitcoin's market share at 55.4%.

Dormant Whale Transfers 92,500 ETH After 7 Years, Possibly Related to Ethereum Foundation?

Blockchain tracker Whale Alert detected that on July 25 at 03:39:23 PM UTC, an address transferred over 92,000 ETH, worth approximately $290 million, after being dormant for 7 years. These tokens had been stored at the same address since 2017.

On-chain data from Arkham Intelligence suggests that these funds may be related to the Ethereum Foundation, as the address is marked as potentially associated with the Ethereum Foundation (0xe93232a). Other community members have suggested that these funds could be linked to early donors of the organization.

Data shows that the wallet initially received 96,474 ETH from the Ethereum Foundation on September 1, 2015, valued at $130,320.

Currently, these tokens are idle in the wallet "0xe481a22". While it is uncertain whether these tokens are from the Ethereum Foundation, as of the time of publication, these funds have not been sold or transferred to exchanges. The transfer occurred during a period of declining ETH prices, coinciding with the launch of the spot Ethereum ETF.

BTC Re-tests Key Support Level

Market analyst TradingShot stated: "Bitcoin today tested the 1D MA50 (blue trend line in the chart below) for the first time since July 19. This is the most significant 'breakout and retest' since October 11, 2023. This is BTC's last retest of the 1D MA50 as a support level following its recent breakout, after the bearish phase of the 21-month upward channel from April 14, 2023, to September 11, 2023, which began at the bottom of the previous bear market cycle in November 2022."

He said, "Although it slightly dipped below this level during the retest, it still successfully maintained the candle closing price above this level, initiating a rebound from October 2023 to March 2024. Therefore, if the same closing conditions are met, we expect a similar rebound to begin, which technically would mark a new bullish trend that could ultimately reach the psychological benchmark of $100,000."

TradingShot added, "It must also be said that next week's Federal Reserve rate decision or at least hints from the September meeting will undoubtedly have a significant impact."

Market analyst SatochiTrader also believes the current weakness is only temporary and that Bitcoin will start to rise once the latest round of FUD dissipates.

SatochiTrader stated on the X platform, "BTC has a large number of DCA (dollar-cost averaging) whales who will do everything possible to protect the price trend. Our strategy is to hold BTC during active cycles. News about AI, Trump, China, and miners may temporarily affect the market, but will not have a lasting impact."

He added that Bitcoin's outlook remains "optimistic and could rise to $74,000 over time."

TradingView user TheForexXMindset urged traders to remain calm despite the recent sell-off, as technical data indicates that Bitcoin will rise soon.

He stated, "Don't panic; TA clearly shows what will happen next. Many traders are selling in a panic. Once this is all over, the general rules will return to normal. Those who hold ALTS will see prices rebound. Many are selling out of fear. Greed will return."

Meanwhile, market analyst Rekt Capital stated that Bitcoin is currently in the process of re-testing the $65,000 level in a volatile manner.

He said, "The daily closing price now needs to be above $65,000 (blue in the chart above) for the retest to be successful and to keep the price within the $65,000-$71,500 range (red in the chart above)."