Santiment: Cryptocurrency whales are quietly hoarding Ethereum

Crypto data platform Santiment shows that large players are quietly hoarding Ethereum as the price of ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, surges.

Santiment data shows that the number of addresses with more than 10,000 ETH has increased over the past two months , while the number of addresses with less than 10,000 ETH has decreased over the same period.

“As Ethereum surpassed $750 for the first time in 31 months, we found that 39 more Ethereum addresses held 10,000+ ETH compared to 2 months ago. Meanwhile, the number of addresses holding 1-10,000 ETH decreased accordingly during this time.”

Source: Santiment

Santiment’s chart also shows that the number of addresses holding 1 – 100 ETH plummeted on Dec. 19. The cryptocurrency data firm noted that issues related to decentralized finance (DeFi) may have triggered the sharp drop.

“We were also surprised by the large drop in this group from two weeks ago. Given how large the drop was, it’s likely DeFi-related.”

As the number of small ETH holders drops dramatically, cryptocurrency trader Alex Saunders says the signal bodes well for the future of the leading smart contract platform.

Whales are hoarding Ethereum while retail investors are selling. While Bitcoin has been hitting new all-time highs, Ethereum has yet to re-reach its 2018 record peak of $1,432. At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading around $730, nearly 50% below its record high three years ago.

This also caught the attention of early Facebook investor Tyler Winklevoss, who compared it to buying BTC at $14,000, which was just over 50% of Bitcoin’s all-time high.

The price of ETH is now $735. This is 51% of its all-time high, which is like buying Bitcoin at a discount at $14,000

— Tyler Winklevoss (@tyler) December 31, 2020