A large Bitcoin wallet has begun selling its digital assets. Previously, this dormant whale had begun swapping the cryptocurrency for ETH. Towards the end of Q3 2025, the whale, who had swapped over $4 billion in BTC for ETH, broke his two-week vacation and proceeded to sell Bitcoin.
This had an obvious impact on investors, who had seen a summer of high-profile sell-offs by whales. What made this all the more poignant was that this whale wallet had been dormant for seven years.
Whales Swaps BTC for ETH
This shift to ETH is not unique to the whale. In its monthly market insights, crypto exchange Binance noted that in August, the total crypto market cap fell 1.7%. Crucially, they added that Bitcoin dominance dropped to 57.3% while Ethereum rose to 14.2%, with corporate treasuries holding 4.44M ETH (3.67% of supply). This was echoed in August’s trading of Spot Bitcoin ETF products. They recorded an outflow of $750 million in contrast to Ethereum’s $3.9 billion in monthly inflows. This has caused the price of Ethereum to move to $4500, consistently pressuring its previous high of $4830.
The movements began on August 20th. Between this period and the start of September, the wallet began to exchange 35,991 BTC, which was equivalent to just over $4 billion, swapping it for 886,371 ETH. This left the whale with 49,634 BTC remaining, held across four wallets. In the second weekend of September, two wallets linked to the whale then deposited 1,176 BTC and began to dump it. This was done in two transactions, one consisting of 551.7 BTC and another of 625 BTC.
According to CME Group, Ethereum has significantly outpaced Bitcoin, delivering a 146% gain compared to Bitcoin’s 17.12% rise since the end of April. The ETH/BTC ratio has also increased, jumping from 0.01797 to 0.041489. However, the volatility of cryptocurrency is such that none of this is without risk. According to FastBull, if the whale reversed the transaction at current rates, it would lose around 460 BTC.
How Do Cryptocurrency Whales Impact ETH Values?
In early September 2025, an original Bitcoin wallet came back to life after 13 years. It contained 445 BTC and was worth around $50 million. Just before that, a similar 13-year inactive account opened up that contained 479 BTC, equivalent to around $53 million.
Historical data and analysis often show that huge sales by whales do benefit ETH. AI Invest conducted research and noted a 63% correlation between whale behavior and price movements. Back in July 2025, whales unloaded 76,000 ETH, and the market reacted sharply. Prices slipped 2.3%, while trading volumes exploded by 18%.
All of this is contributing to price volatility for ETH, as people move to acquire it and predict where it will go on the market. In contrast, BTC has remained fairly stagnant, dipping slightly then regaining its position. Amidst some bearish technical signals, the next week’s economic conditions could really pinpoint where Bitcoin is headed. Binance noted that these may include potential drivers beyond rate cuts, such as unexpected ‘dovish’ Fed policy moves, rapid U.S. crypto legislation, institutional adoption by pension and sovereign wealth funds, or stronger corporate earnings.
Further Support for ETH
Major financial bodies are also voicing their support for Ethereum. Standard Chartered, the British-based multinational bank, has said that digital asset treasury flows will be a stronger driver for Ethereum than they are for Bitcoin and Solana.
A digital asset treasury company is one that stores Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as part of its assets. This was pioneered by Strategy, which has seen booming stock levels as Bitcoin has increased in value. However, as many companies rallied to follow suit, they took a risk in doing so. Selling stock to fund their cryptocurrency acquisitions ran down the market net asset values (mNAV) of many, being the ratio of their value to their holdings in cryptocurrency. In the last few weeks, many of them have collapsed.
Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick published a report stating that this will drive consolidation. The result will be that ETH and SOL treasuries now have higher mNAVs because of staking yields. He also added that ETH will be better positioned for this as it is more established. Galaxy says digital asset treasury companies currently hold 4% of all bitcoin. This is in contrast to 3.1% of Ethereum and 0.8% of SOL.
Citigroup does not share this outlook for Ethereum. They have set a $4,300 year-end price for Ethereum, citing demand from investors and its use in stablecoins as positive. However, this remains way below the currency’s recent high of $4,954.
Their reasoning for this was that the current price is driven by sentiment and is above activity estimates. It believes this price was driven by buying pressure and excitement over its usage. This could possibly refer to its use as a stablecoin provider. According to Binance, stablecoins surged, particularly as the USDe supply grew 43.5% in August to US$12.2B, capturing 4% of the stablecoin market. This is built on the Ethereum blockchain.
