Crypto Whales Gobble $2B in ETH as ETF Frenzy Sparks Short Squeeze—Here’s Why It Matters
Ethereum’s big-money players just made a $2 billion power move—and Wall Street’s paper hands got caught in the crossfire. With spot ETH ETFs finally nearing approval, the smart money’s piling in while shorts scramble to cover. Here’s how the dominoes fell.
The setup: A perfect storm of institutional demand and leveraged traders betting against ETH backfired spectacularly. Whale wallets sucked up supply, exchanges saw withdrawals spike, and—surprise—the price ripped higher. Classic crypto market mechanics, but with a 2025 twist: TradFi’s late to the party (again).
The kicker? This might just be the warm-up. ETF inflows could turn this squeeze into a full-blown price discovery phase. Or, you know, the whales could dump on everyone after the launch. Because nothing says 'financial innovation' like the same old pump-and-dump with a fancy wrapper.
Whale activity surged in the past few months
🐋 A WHALE BOUGHT 24,294 $ETH
WORTH $86.22 MILLION TODAY.
WHALES ARE BUYING ethereum LIKE
NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN HISTORY !!! pic.twitter.com/eYrmvkeYCq
— Ash Crypto (@Ashcryptoreal) August 4, 2025
Arkham’s data revealed that a whale or an institution bought 108.278K ETH for $284 million via OTC on June 4. On the same day, another whale acquired 3.046K ETH worth $7.97 million. The data continued to show more whale activity on June 5 as a whale linked to Consensys received $320 million worth of ETH from Galaxy Digital.
On June 22, a whale added 17.07K ETH for $39 million, bringing their total ETH holdings to 132.536K Ether valued at over $303 million. The previous day, June 21, another whale had purchased 30K ETH worth approximately $73 million. That particular whale had bought 116.292K ETH worth $282.6 million in ten days.
“A whale has bought 32,368 ETH worth $118 million. In just a week, he has accumulated 138K ETH worth $500 million.”
–Ash Crypto, crypto market Analyst
On July 21, another whale bought 34,033 ETH for $128.68 million. Arkham’s data also showed that a whale bought 60.646K Ether worth $226 million on July 25. There was more whale activity two days later, as July 27 saw another address receive 30.366K ETH valued at over $115 million, according to Ash Crypto. Panic sellers sold on July 31 after Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech. One whale bought the dip, acquiring 39.652 ETH for over $153 million.
Interest in ETH keeps rising
The Kobeissi Letter claimed that interest in ETH was rising because Ethereum was undergoing “one of the largest short squeezes in crypto history.” Kobeissi noted that ETH added a market cap of over $150 million since July 1. The analysis estimated that $1 billion worth of ETH short positions could be liquidated if Ether climbed another 10%. That development would likely send ETH prices catapulting to above $4K or maybe beyond.
Institutional ETF demand was also soaring as Glassnode data showed that U.S. ETH ETFs recorded single-day inflows of more than $727 million in mid-July. The SosoValue platform confirmed that U.S. ETH ETFs had a cumulative total netflow of $9.49 billion as of August 1. The total value traded stood at 2.26 billion, while the total net assets were valued at over $20 billion.
SosoValue’s data on August 4 showed that the net inflow for ETH spot ETFs was $154 million between July 28 and August 1. However, only ETHA recorded net inflows. As of publication, the ETH ETF net asset ratio reached 4.7%.
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