Ethereum co-founder Jeff Wilcke admitted he has sold 90,000 ETH, noticed by whale-watching bots in a recent transactions. The transfer, which carried the significant stash of ETH to Kraken, sparked fears the coin may slide in the coming days, erasing more of its value by the end of the year.
According to blockchain research, Trustnodes reported the ETH may be a part of the initial supply of ETH distributed to the team. The decision to sell is viewed as a loss of trust in the project.
https://twitter.com/whale_alert/status/1209775180672843776
The sale also called for more scrutiny on the pre-mined supply of ETH, which turned Vitalik Buterin and some of the dev team members became instant whales. The large-scale transfer follows recent revelations that ETH from the early haul and the ICO stage has been sold at peak prices.
The exact owner of the account was discovered after the wallet of Wilcke was linked to the Ethereum Name Service, a decentralized version of the DNS. The wallet still contains a fast amount of ETH, starting with a balance of 408,000 ETH as of 2016.
Currently, the address holds above 218,000 ETH, showing a record of significant amounts taken out over the years.
The news arrived at a time when ETH market prices were sliding significantly, already marking a net loss for 2019. ETH continued its slide, reaching $125.02, on reduced volumes around $8.8 billion’s equivalent in 24 hours. The potential sale of another 90,000 ETH on Kraken, depending on timing, could lead to price slippage.
The Kraken pairing of ETH/USD has a volume of around $4.36 million per day, and may not be capable of absorbing the attempt to sell the 90,000 ETH.
The potential to sell ETH may also come from multiple other “whales”, as the asset has been hauled for various reasons, from ICOs, to DeFi schemer, or just early purchases during the Ethereum ICO.
