Dormant ETH whale from 2014 ICO reawakens after 8 years

An Ethereum investor who took part in the network’s initial coin offering has resurfaced after eight years of dormancy. It is seen as one of the largest individual troves of ETH ever tracked on-chain. The whale originally spent just $310,000 across three wallets to acquire 1 million Ethereum back in 2014. However, it is worth over $4.3 billion now.

The whale’s movement has added to the sentimental pressure among investors, who were hoping that the recent Ether price drop was just a correction and not a “sell at the top” opportunity. Ethereum price remained marginally up over the last 7 days after surging by 21% in the past 30 days.

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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