A Bitcoin whale sold $76M in BTC after 7 years, shifting into Ethereum. Could this signal growing ETH demand over Bitcoin?
A long-time Bitcoin whale has just made headlines after moving millions into Ethereum.
The investor, who accumulated Bitcoin over seven years ago through Binance and HTX, sold part of their $1.6 billion Bitcoin holdings to fund a massive Ethereum long position. The sale came just days after Bitcoin hit a new price high of $124,128, while Ethereum neared its previous peak of $4,878.
Now that both assets are showing strength, the whale’s rotation shows just how much the market is changing.
Whale Cashes Out Bitcoin to Buy Ethereum
The whale reportedly sold 670 Bitcoin worth $76 million and used the funds to buy Ethereum. According to Lookonchain, the purchase was split across four positions, worth 68,130 ETH.
Most of the trades were placed at around $4,300 with up to 10x leverage, while a smaller position carried 3x leverage.
A Bitcoin OG holding 14,837 $BTC($1.69B) sold 670.1 $BTC($76M) today and opened massive longs of 68,130 $ETH($295M).
A whale deposited 670.1 $BTC($76M) to Hyperliquid in the past 20 hours and sold it, then went long on $ETH across 4 wallets with positions totaling 68,130… pic.twitter.com/2xdG2LjgYl
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 21, 2025
Ethereum’s price dipped soon after this to $4,080, which put three of the leveraged trades at risk of liquidation. The liquidation thresholds were close to $3,700 and are leaving little room for error.
Still, Ethereum has rebounded and is trading at $4,287, up 2.9% in the last 24 hours.
Institutions Are Accumulating Ethereum Too
It is not just whales making big moves. Institutions are also increasing their exposure. On-chain data showed that two wallets linked to institutions accumulated 9,044 ETH each, worth about $38 million recently.
Meanwhile, BitMine Immersion Technologies added another 52,475 ETH to its treasury.
This brought its Ethereum holdings to 1.52 million tokens, worth $6.6 billion. Such moves show Ethereum’s increasing importance in institutional portfolios alongside Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Whales Moving After Years of Dormancy
The recent whale activity moves far beyond Ethereum buying. Several old Bitcoin wallets have become active after years of silence.
A Satoshi-era whale holding over 80,000 Bitcoin moved funds to Galaxy Digital in July after 14 years of inactivity. Another whale holding 1,042 Bitcoin worth $123 million also reactivated after six years.
Analysts noted that large holders with more than 10,000 BTC have been slowly selling since the last decade, and often transfer funds to new wallets or institutional platforms.
Despite these sales, market experts believe this activity is healthy.
Selling by early adopters opens up room for new investors and shows that the market is maturing.
Whale Doubles Down on Ethereum
The $76 million trade was only the beginning. Reports showed that the same whale later moved another $113 million worth of Bitcoin into Ethereum. This time, the funds were used to open a $240 million spot Ethereum position.
This was alongside the previous $295 million perpetual futures trade.
Update on this guy: things have gotten even crazier, and he’s still going.
Over the past 5 hours since the last post in this thread, he deposited another 1,000 BTC ($113M) to Hyperliquid. This time, however, he chose to buy ETH spot instead of longing perps.
So far, he has…
— MLM (@mlmabc) August 21, 2025
In total, the whale holds 55,700 spot ETH worth over $240 million as of writing, plus Bitcoin reserves of around $167 million.
Overall, the whale’s aggressive shift into Ethereum could be a signal of confidence in its long-term value. Now, as both whales and institutions continue to stack ETH, the competition between Bitcoin and Ethereum is heating up with each passing day.
