The way prices move in the crypto market is fairly simple.
Prices go up when people buy more of a cryptocurrency, and prices crash if people (or one large player) sell.
According to recent reports, a wallet address flagged as belonging to Ethereum's creator, Vitalik Buterin, has just sent a fairly large amount of ETH into Coinbase.
What exactly is going on, why is Ethereum's founder sending ETH into a centralized exchange, and what could this mean for the price of Ethereum?
Let's dig in together, and uncover the answers to these questions.
The activity on centralized exchanges (or CEXes) can be an important tool for figuring out what is going on in the crypto market.
When investors send their crypto into a CEX, we can conclude that they are doing so to sell them. The reverse occurs when investors pull their crypto out of exchanges.
According to recent reports from Spot On Chain on September 25, Vitalik Buterin recently sent 400 ETH straight into Coinbase.
According to current prices, this tranche of ETH is worth about $632,000 and right after this transfer came to light, the crypto community went abuzz.
It can be argued that Vitalik himself transferring ETH into a centralized exchange may be an innocent move. However, a few problems can stem from this.
This isn't all.
According to Spot On Chain, this recent 400 ETH transaction isn't all there is.
Spot On Chain reports that the recent transfer is only the latest of several ETH deposits to centralized exchanges over the past 10 days.
Spot On Chain even estimates that Vitalik Buterin has deposited almost 2,421 ETH (worth $3.94 million in fiat) from Sept. 15 until date.
Again, we ask:
So far, there are no plausible explanations as to why Vitalik Buterin started to transfer millions of dollars worth of ETH into centralized exchanges in less than a month.
However, there has been speculation that these transactions are routine transfers of some kind, and either Buterin himself, or the Ethereum foundation is gearing up for something big.
Other reasons may be:
In all, there is no way to know for sure, and Buterin's ETH transfers may have been for one out of dozens of reasons.
Ethereum is currently down in terms of price and sentiment, according to Santiment.
This price and sentiment weakness paints a not-so-positive picture of Ethereum's outlook, especially after the news of Buterin selling ETH.
Furthermore, according to a recent tweet from analyst and trader, Ali, the Ethereum whales have not been buying as of late.
If that wasn't enough, another analyst, Immortal Crypto has predicted in this tweet, that we may see further price declines on Ethereum to $1,300 to $1,500 over the next few weeks.
CryptoQuant also notes that a "short squeeze" maybe "on the horizon" for Ethereum.
However, the on-chain data analytics platform also added that if the funding rates on Ethereum continue to stay negative, it could potentially trigger a wave of short liquidations.
When this happens, we could see a "sudden price rebound."
Ethereum continues to struggle around the $1,600 zone.
After reaching a high of $1,601.54 on Thursday, ETH/USD later fell to an intraday low of $1,573 where it now sits.
This is also the lowest position Ethereum has been at it bottomed out at $1,549 on 12 September.
Ethereum is currently facing support at the $1,526 zone. The cryptocurrency's ability to hold out above this support will determine whether we see further price declines or a rebound.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.