Last (2) night, the cryptocurrency market faced pressure amid a US stock market decline, with Bitcoin dropping to a low of $78,462 and Ethereum plummeting to $1,472, precisely triggering potential stop-losses for those who went long after the previous day's "tariff suspension".
At the time of writing, it was trading at $1,537, down 6.13% in the past 24 hours.
Whale Large-Scale Sell-Off
There are many possible reasons for Ethereum's weakness, including Synthetix selling 90% of its ETH due to sUSD depegging, and multiple whales selling large amounts during the downturn...
According to blockchain data analyst Yu Ji's monitoring, a whale who held 65,000 ETH long leveraged positions on March 11 appears to have decided to give up resistance after facing multiple forced liquidations, choosing to clear leverage and sell at a stop-loss:
The whale, who had previously sold some ETH during liquidation attempts, first sold most of their Ethereum around 21:30 last night to repay loans, selling 26,881 ETH and leaving 11,600 ETH (approximately $18.26 million).
Shortly after this operation, the whale sold another 9,000 ETH, leaving only 2,688 ETH, essentially completing a full liquidation. (These two operations sold a total of 35,881 ETH.)
Another Whale Also Chooses to Sell
Moreover, according to The Data Nerd's monitoring, another whale who has held Ethereum for two years deposited 2,300 ETH to Kraken last night. Two years ago, this whale bought ETH at an average price of $1,298, and if sold now, would only have a profit of around $600,000.
Why Are Whales Selling Ethereum Recently?
As the second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum has always been highly anticipated, with multiple institutions predicting ETH could reach a new high of $10,000 this year. However, with the recent overall weakness in the cryptocurrency market and Ethereum repeatedly hitting new lows, some whales who may have positioned at low prices are now losing confidence and deciding to cash out.
Additionally, Ethereum's fundamentals are facing challenges, including slowing active address growth, value fragmentation from Layer 2 solutions, and wavering institutional investor confidence, which might prompt investors to reassess ETH's value and shift towards more stable assets.
