Whale buys back ETH holdings after missing $2.6M gain

A crypto trader spent $3.8 million to buy Ether at a significantly higher price after selling the asset for almost the same amount about a month ago. 

On May 22, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain reported that a crypto wallet spent $3.8 million to purchase 1,425 Ether (ETH) at $2,670 per coin, reentering ETH after a major rally. 

On April 13, the same wallet sold 2,522 ETH for $3.9 million, when the asset was trading at about $1,570, a decision that, in retrospect, looks poorly timed. 

“Think twice before selling your bags,” Lookonchain wrote, highlighting the potential gains if the trader just held on to their Ether instead of selling and repurchasing it at a higher price point. 

Trader loses out on $2.67 million gain

With ETH up over 70% since the sale, the trader lost out on over 1,000 ETH, or roughly $2.67 million, in the process of buying back in. If the trader had decided to hold on to their Ether, the assets would be worth about $6.7 million. 

As ETH rallied, the asset surpassed the market capitalization of big companies like Coca-Cola and Alibaba.

At the time of writing, company data tracker 8marketcap shows that Ether’s $321 billion market capitalization makes it the 38th most-valuable asset in the world, surpassing the pharmaceutical company AbbVie and inching closer to the Bank of America. 

Ether’s upswing was largely fueled by the successful launch of its Pectra upgrade. The update improved the network’s scalability, validator user experience and smart-wallet functionality. These updates are expected to drive broader adoption of the Ethereum mainnet. 

Related: Bitcoin open interest hits record high as bulls stampede toward new BTC price highs

ETH leads crypto investment products with $205 million weekly inflows

Along with its recent price appreciation, ETH-based investment products in the United States also saw renewed interest. 

A May 19 report from digital asset manager CoinShares revealed that US crypto investment products saw $785 million in inflows last week. This development pushes the year-to-date (YTD) total for crypto ETPs to $7.5 billion. 

ETH was the top performer among the crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs), attracting $205 million in inflows last week. This represented 26% of all the inflows within the time period. This also brought ETH’s YTD total to over $575 million. 

The CoinShares report attributed the increased inflows to renewed investor optimism following the Pectra upgrade and also the Ethereum Foundation’s appointment of Tomasz Stańczak as a co-executive director. 

Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story