TL; DR
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One anonymous degen bought 254,900 ETH in 2014 at an ICO price of $0.311 per token, and has never moved more than 47,000 ETH – until yesterday.
Full story
This will age us, but…we remember the ‘ICO era’ of crypto.
If you have no idea what that is, for a while between ~2013-2018 or so,’first coin offering‘ were all the rage.
They were a popular way to raise money through crypto, allowing many people to have a small stake in your business (via tokens), but instead of everyone having to be an accredited investor, those who could come up with crypto wallets could, to invest.
(There are some blurred lines with ICOs, but that’s not the point of this article).
A few notable tokens raised their initial funding through an ICO, such as Ethereum, which raised ~31,000 BTC in July 2014, which was equivalent to approximately $18.3 million USD at the time.
From that ICO, most people who bought early have since sold.
However, one anonymous person purchased 254,900 ETH at an ICO price of $0.311 per token, and has never moved more than 47,000 ETH.
Until yesterday – when they moved 7000 ETH (worth approximately $24.3 million USD) from their cold wallet to Kraken.
Why is this important?
When someone moves their crypto for the first time after years of holding it, it usually indicates one of two things: they are about to cash out (for fiat money), or they are about to make their next big crypto bet to close.
For coins with smaller market caps, this type of single-wallet movement can be a major cause for concern.
But with ETH holding steady at a cool $417 billion+ USD, $24.3 million isn’t a drop in the bucket.
Okay, now you know!