Ethereum-kit moves 145,000 ETH acquired during the ICO

An unknown participant in the Ethereum Genesis ICO moved 145,000 ETH (~$274 million) from an address that had been idle for the past three years.

Ethereum Genesis ICO giant whale 0x4bAf012726CB5EC7Dda57Bc2770798A38100C44d is active again after nearly 3 years of dormancy. Since yesterday, a total of 145,000 ETHs have been transferred out and distributed to multiple wallets. Wallet link: https://t.co/hpLujWwxWi

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 15, 2022

The user distributed the funds across various wallets, sending a total of 14 transactions of 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 ETH.

Previous activity in the wallet dated to July 2019, when 5,000 ETH were sent to the Bitfinex3 exchange. At the time the coin traded at $219, the value of the transaction barely exceeded $1 million.

The movement of such a large quantity of coins sparked a reaction in the community. Some speculated a major dump ahead of The Merge, which would move the Ethereum blockchain from the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

Other commentators believed that Ethereum-kit intends to stake the assets and earn passive income from several validator nodes in the PoS network.

Sell the news mega dump coming pic.twitter.com/EkG4BDIsVp

— Trader WhiteBeard (@SHlROIHI) August 15, 2022

Developers planned The Merge for September 15–16. They moved up the schedule after a successful migration on August 11 to the PoS testnet Goerli. This was considered the final rehearsal before activation on the mainnet.

Analysts at CoinShares skeptical about the prospects of a potential alternative chain.

The ETC Cooperative doubted the feasibility of the fork. However the EthereumPoW project team called the fork ‘inevitable’.

Read ForkLog’s Bitcoin news in our Telegram — crypto news, rates and analytics.