Bitcoin Drops as Major Investor Transfers Billions to Ethereum

Bitcoin has dropped to its lowest point in over a month as a significant investor started selling off thousands of coins to invest in Ethereum.

Data from CryptoSlate indicates the cryptocurrency is now trading at approximately $111,600 as of Monday, reflecting a nearly 3% decrease in one day and its lowest price since early July.

This drop wiped out gains from just a week prior, when Bitcoin had briefly surged past $117,000 due to speculation about a potential interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September.

However, intense selling from one of the network’s larger and older wallets shifted the momentum downward and affected the wider market.

Whale transitions from Bitcoin to Ethereum

As reported by Lookonchain, an early Bitcoin investor who acquired over 100,000 BTC seven years ago has been actively switching to Ethereum.

In the last five days, this wallet moved approximately 23,000 BTC, valued around $2.6 billion, onto the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid. Following this, they purchased nearly 473,000 ETH, worth $2.2 billion, and opened a significant long position.

The whale has since realized some profits, closing more than 95,000 ETH longs at an average price of $4,735, netting $33 million.

Additionally, the proceeds from these sales have been reinvested into further ETH purchases, totaling over 23,500 tokens valued at $108 million.

Despite reducing some exposure, the wallet still holds over 40,000 ETH in open long positions, with more than $11 million in unrealized gains.

Hyperliquid experiences trading surge

The active repositioning has also increased trading volume on Hyperliquid, the largest decentralized perpetual exchange.

According to the platform, spot trading volumes on Hyperliquid reached a record $3.4 billion within 24 hours, placing it second among all centralized and decentralized venues for Bitcoin spot trading. BTC trading alone comprised $1.5 billion in volume during this timeframe.

The platform commented:

“This [trading volume] surpassed Coinbase and Bybit BTC spot volumes combined and is nearly on par with BTC/USDT on Binance.”

In the midst of this activity, Hyperliquid generated over $4.7 million in trading fees in just one day. Part of these fees was utilized for buybacks of the exchange’s native HYPE token, with its subsidiary, Unit, contributing nearly $1.9 million to this effort.

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