On-chain data shows that whale activity on the Ethereum blockchain has been quite high recently due to excitement surrounding exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the spot market.

Ethereum whales show much higher activity than Bitcoin whales

According to data from a chain analytics company SaintlyEthereum whales have been showing a lot of activity lately. The indicator of significance here is the “Whale Transaction Count”, which tracks the total amount of transfers on any network worth at least $100,000.

Transfers exceeding this amount are generally associated with whales, so the value of this indicator can provide insight into the activity of these gigantic investors.

When the metric value is high, the blockchain is currently seeing a lot of gigantic transactions. Such a trend means that whales have an lively interest in trading the asset.

On the other hand, a low rate suggests that whales do not pay much attention to the cryptocurrency as they do not make many transfers.

Here is a chart showing the trend in Whale Transaction Count for the three most popular cryptocurrencies in the sector, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT), year to date:

As you can see from the chart above, the number of Whale transactions for Ethereum has recently been the highest among the three assets. Specifically, ETH has seen 77,200 Whale transactions since the 17th of this month, which is significantly more than BTC’s 47,000 transactions or USDT’s 34,100 transactions.

The surge in activity in the market for these assets is likely the result of the buzz around spot ETFs, which, after a long wait, have finally been launched after obtaining approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The Whale Transaction Count would suggest that whales were starting to change positions before this launch. However, it is challenging to say exactly what kind of activity these gigantic holders were engaged in based on this indicator alone.

Given that the event was considered bullish, it would make sense for whales to buy. Data from Market Intelligence platform To the Block confirmed that gigantic holders have recently increased supply.

IntoTheBlock defines “large holders” as investors who hold at least 0.1% of the entire circulating supply of Ethereum. The chart shows that net flow into the wallets of this cohort has remained positive over the past week, which aligns with the period when whales were lively.

Yesterday alone, gigantic Ethereum holders bought 112,900 ETH, which is equivalent to about $391 million at the current exchange rate. “This accumulation significantly exceeds the $106 million net inflow into the ETF,” the analytics firm notes.

ETH Price

At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at around $3,460, unchanged from the previous week.

Featured image from Dall-E, IntoTheBlock.com, chart from TradingView.com