Ethereum OG Sells $188M, Buys ETH Back 23% Lower

An early Ethereum investor sold roughly 60,000 ETH, 9,442 wrapped staked ETH (wstETH) and 600 wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) for about $188 million when ether traded near $2,040. Within days the same address began buying ether on-chain at lower prices, accumulating about $55.8 million of ETH at an average near $1,563 per token.

Blockchain data show the sales broke down to about $117.25 million of ETH, $24 million of wstETH and $47.12 million of WBTC. The WBTC disposals averaged about $78,538 per token. The sales occurred shortly before a wider market downturn earlier this month.

The subsequent purchases took place over a two-day span at the lower price and completed a round trip of selling and buying back the same asset. The sequence reduced the holder’s average cost basis without adding fresh capital to the wallet.

On-chain records indicate the address still holds sizable stablecoin balances. Those holdings remain available for potential further purchases if the investor chooses to deploy them.

Wrapped staked ether and wrapped bitcoin are tokenized versions of staked ETH and bitcoin that trade on blockchains and can be used in decentralized finance without unstaking the underlying assets. Converting those tokens to liquid holdings allowed the wallet to capture proceeds across asset types before repurchasing ether.

The wallet made another large sale in recent weeks, offloading about 55,000 ETH for roughly $136 million when ether tested the $2,000 level. Multiple leveraged positions were liquidated during the same period of market volatility.

Market sentiment metrics showed elevated caution: the crypto fear and greed index stood at 8 at the time of the trades.