Dormant ETH Whale from 2014 ICO Awakens After 8 Years - Massive Movement Sparks Market Speculation

After eight years of absolute silence, a pre-sale Ethereum whale just stirred—and the entire crypto ecosystem felt the ripple.

The Genesis Sleep

This address received its ETH back in 2014 during the initial coin offering. No transactions out, no DeFi farming, no NFT flips—just pure, untouched dormancy. Until now.

The Awakening

Active verbs define this move: the whale transferred a significant portion of its holdings. No warning, no gradual testing—just a sudden on-chain event that sent analysts scrambling.

Market Impact & Reactions

Traders piled into speculation threads. Was this a long-term holder finally taking profit? An institutional player moving cold storage assets? Or just someone who finally remembered their private key?

Timeless Strategy or Lucky Break?

Holding through ICO mania, the 2018 crash, the 2021 supercycle, and the subsequent consolidation—this whale saw it all without blinking. Meanwhile, hedge funds charging 2-and-20 can’t even beat HODL returns. Sometimes the best trade is no trade at all.

Ethereum ICO whale stakes $645M

Data provided by Lookonchain shows that the ICO whale moved 150,000 ETH (worth approx. $645 million) into a new wallet for staking. Despite that, it still holds another 105,000 ETH ($451 million) spread across two addresses. However, the investor still controls more than 850,000 ETH (approx. worth $3.7 billion). This MOVE to stake Ether rather than liquidate was read as a bullish signal by the community.

An #Ethereum ICO participant who received 1,000,000 $ETH just woke up after 8 years of dormancy.

He moved 150,000 $ETH($645M) to a new wallet for staking.

He invested $310K in the ICO via 3 wallets and received 1,000,000 $ETH — now worth $4.3B.

After staking 150,000 $ETH, he… pic.twitter.com/B5CBTBJ2O5

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 5, 2025

The ICO investor emergence comes in when whales and institutions are on a buying spree. During the recent market pullback, large holders accumulated 218,750 ETH (about $943 million). That includes Bitmine’s $300 million purchase of 69,603 ETH from BitGo and Galaxy Digital, while five newly created wallets picked up 102,455 ETH from FalconX.

Santiment data shows that whales holding between 1,000 and 100,000 ETH have surged their balances by 14% over the past five months. Over the last 90 days, Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin with a huge margin. ETH price spiked by 76% while BTC price jumped by just 7% in the period.

Ethereum is trading at an average price of $4,442 at the press time. It recently went on to hit its ATH of almost $5,000. ETF inflows are one of the major reasons driving Ethereum’s momentum. In August alone, ETH ETFs drew $3.87 billion in inflows, with another $1.08 billion in the last week of August.

ETH backers are doubling down

Ethereum’s corporate and institutional backers are growing more assertive. Ether Machine raised $654 million in early September. It was built on $800 million in previous financing that included a $741 million worth of ETH contribution from co-founder Andrew Keys.

SharpLink has emerged as a major player, holding $3.4 billion in ETH. In a post, Joseph Chalom, SharpLink’s co-CEO, highlighted that Ethereum’s long-term value is directly tied to the growth of assets secured on its blockchain. This includes stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), and DeFi collateral.

According to Consensys Trustware, for every $2 of such assets, Ethereum’s market cap has appreciated by roughly $1. With stablecoins projected to grow from $275 billion today to over $2 trillion, and RWAs forecast to expand from $30 billion to as much as $16 trillion, Chalom said the implication for ETH’s valuation is ‘inevitable.’

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