Erik Voorhees acquires nearly 25K ETH worth $56.5M as ETF inflows rise and Ethereum gains momentum in the market.
Longtime industry figure Erik Voorhees has made a strong return to Ethereum a year after selling part of his holdings. As spotted by on-chain observers, wallets linked to the former CEO of ShapeShift recently bought tens of thousands of ETH. Activity also appears to reflect institutional demand for ETH, which continues to grow.
Two Wallets Linked to Erik Voorhees Acquire Nearly 25,000 ETH
Lookonchain reported, citing data from Arkham Intelligence, that Voorhees spent 49.08 million USDT to buy 23,393 ETH on Sunday. The transactions were carried out through two separate wallets.
Records show that Voorhees sold 12,886 ETH about a year ago when Ethereum traded near $3,324. Recent buying therefore marks a renewed accumulation phase after that earlier sale.
Erik Voorhees(@ErikVoorhees), an early #Bitcoin supporter and founder of ShapeShift, is buying back $ETH after a one-year break.
One year ago, he sold 12,886 $ETH($42.83M) at $3,324.
In the past 5 days, he has spent 17.75M $USDT to buy back 8,576 $ETH at $2,069.
He still holds… pic.twitter.com/zTD1DdU6WU
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) March 15, 2026
Additional activity followed the initial purchases. One of the wallets, identified as “0x3e6…Ef2f7,” later swapped more USDT for ETH. As a result, total purchases across both wallets have reached 24,968 ETH, worth about $56.5 million.
Arkham data also shows that the wallet “0x3e6…Ef2f7” still holds around $4.44 million in USDT and about $8.64 million in AETHUSDT. This token represents USDT supplied in Aave’s Ethereum lending market. Meanwhile, the second wallet, “0x431…10c91,” used nearly all of its USDT balance to acquire ETH.
Institutional Flows and Large Purchases Strengthen Market Sentiment
Earlier in the week, on-chain trackers also linked Voorhees to purchases of tokenized gold assets. Transactions included roughly $23.7 million worth of XAUT and PAXG, both digital tokens backed by physical gold. Representatives for Voorhees have not confirmed the transactions.
Large Ethereum purchases also come at a time when institutional interest remains steady. Spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds recorded $160.8 million in net inflows last week.
At the same time, other large buyers have appeared in the market. Lookonchain reported that Billy Luedtke, CEO of Intuition Protocol and an early Ethereum user, bought 7,769 ETH on Sunday.
Ethereum trades near $2,265 at the time of writing, rising about 7% over the past 24 hours. Price sits above the 20-day and 50-day moving averages but remains below the 200-day average.
