Cointelegraph by Zoltan Vardai
A Bitcoin whale has been accumulating billions of dollars’ worth of Ether, surpassing the second-largest corporate treasury firm, signaling a growing rotation among large investors seeking cryptocurrencies with more upside potential.
A Bitcoin whale worth over $11 billion sold another $215 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to buy $216 million worth of spot Ether (ETH) on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid.
Following the latest buy, the whale now holds 886,371 Ether worth more than $4 billion, Lookonchain reported on Monday in an X post.
The growing whale demand for Ether is signaling the market’s “natural rotation” into Ether and other altcoins with more upside potential, while Ether’s price is also benefiting from growing corporate accumulation, Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen, told Cointelegraph.
The $11 billion Bitcoin whale started rotating his funds into Ether on Aug. 21, when he sold $2.59 billion worth of BTC for a $2.2 billion spot Ether and a $577 million Ether perpetual long position, Cointelegraph reported.
Last Monday, the whale closed $450 million worth of his perpetual long position at an average Ether price of $4,735, to lock in $33 million worth of profit, before acquiring another $108 million worth of spot Ether.
The multibillion-dollar rotation inspired other large investors, including nine “massive” whale addresses that acquired a cumulative $456 million worth of ETH on Wednesday, Cointelegraph reported.
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$11 billion Bitcoin whale surpasses SharpLink’s $3.5 billion Ether holdings
Some cryptocurrency whales are starting to eclipse the holdings of corporate cryptocurrency treasury firms.
With the latest investment, the mysterious whale’s $4 billion Ether holdings are now worth more than the portfolio of SharpLink Gaming, the world’s second-largest corporate Ether holder, which currently holds over 797,000 ETH worth $3.5 billion.
However, the whale’s holdings are still just about 50% compared to the leading corporate Ether holder, Bitmine Immersion’s 1.8 million Ether tokens worth over $8 billion, according to data from strategicethereserve.xyz.
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Adding to the growing demand, spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have also acquired over $1.8 billion worth of Ether over the past five trading days, data from Farside Investors shows.
“Institutions are clearly broadening their scope beyond Bitcoin,” according to Iliya Kalchev, dispatch analyst at digital asset platform Nexo.
“For crypto, the pattern is clear: short-term moves will continue to hinge on macro releases, but the structural drivers of adoption, institutional inflows, and tokenized finance remain intact,” the analyst told Cointelegraph.
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