Ethereum, dubbed as the “king of all altcoins” and the second largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, managed to trim its recent losses as it continues to struggle in this extended crypto winter.
According to tracking from Coingecko, Ethereum is changing hands at $1,332.18, going up by 2.1% over the last 24 hours and tallying an increase of 3.2% over the past week.
But the digital asset is still performing badly considering it is nowhere near its all-time high of $4,878 attained on November 10, 2021.
By this date last year, the altcoin opened its day with a trading price of $3,848, which is almost thrice as much as its current value.
Moreover, Ethereum is coming off a major price dump, losing 26% of its $1,773 price on September 10.
While the crypto, along with its fellow digital currencies are no stranger to price drops caused by the unpredictable volatility of their market, experts think big investors of Ethereum are somehow responsible for its recent slump.
Ethereum Whales Collectively Dump
On October 16, crypto market intelligence platform Santiment shared on Twitter that Ethereum sharks and whales, for the past five weeks, have been dumping their holdings of the altcoin.
According to the data released, these big investors dumped a total of 3.3 million ETH tokens with a total value of $4.3 billion based on the crypto’s current trading price.
🐳🦈 #Ethereum‘s shark & whale addresses (holding 100 to 1M $ETH) have dropped 3.3M $ETH in just the past 5 weeks. This equates to about $4.2B in dumped coins. The asset’s price vs. #Bitcoin has ebbed and flowed based on behavior of these key stakeholders. https://t.co/1L2iGaoxzg pic.twitter.com/jDkSzS6Vyk
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) October 16, 2022
Ethereum sharks and whales are, as defined, those who are in possession of 100 to 1 million ETH coins.
With this development, the thesis stating that crypto whales or largest investors affect the market greatly with their accumulation and dumping actions has been proven true once again.
It is important to note that during the time when Ethereum holders were getting rid of their assets, the cryptocurrency bled further as its price was sent into a nosedive.
Not Yet Time To Panic
Things are not looking good for Bitcoin’s top rival, but some experts believe it is not yet time to push the panic button as there are upsides to this development.
Some analysts say the same holders that dumped their Ethereum holdings might try to push the asset’s price higher than what was seen of it last month.
The ETH sharks and whales now own lesser number of tokens as compared to how much they had when it was trading for $1,400 and might try to buy back the assets they have sold.
This could turn out to be the scenario targeted by ETH holders as forecasts from Coincodex show the cryptocurrency falling all the way down to $1,221 over the next five days.
The month of November is seen to bring more struggle to the crypto as the 30-day prediction puts ETH trading price at $909.14.
ETH market cap at $163.5 billion on the daily chart | Featured image from Forbes, Chart: TradingView.com Disclaimer: The analysis represents the author's personal views and should not be construed as investment advice.