Ethereum ICO Participant Resurfaces and Transfers 8,000 $ETH After it Appreciated Nearly 600,000%

A dormant cryptocurrency whale that participated in Ethereum’s initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2015 has sprung back to life. The whale purchased 8,000 $ETH, equivalent to nearly $15 million at the time of writing, during the ICO.

According to blockchain monitoring service Lookonchain, the reactivation process started with a cautious initial transaction, involving a test transfer of just 1 ETH (worth around $1,900). Following the successful completion of this preliminary transaction, the wallet proceeded to move the balance of its remaining 7,999 ether to the new address.

The original wallet’s owner had participated in the Ethereum ICO, purchasing the funds at roughly $0.31 per token. The total investment at the time was a mere $2,500. Given the current value of ETH, this implies an astronomical return on investment of approximately 591,900%.

An Ethereum ICO participant who has been dormant for 8 years woke up today.

He transferred all 8000 $ETH($14.7M) to a new address.https://t.co/1griKB9Te9 pic.twitter.com/1bvQh3zsqY

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 28, 2023

The recipient of this windfall is a wallet with a scanty transaction history. Apart from the recently transferred fortune, this wallet’s activity is restricted to a single inbound transaction of 207 ether ($390,000).

This sum originated from another wallet, itself inactive since 2017, and was transferred a few minutes prior to the arrival of the larger sum.

The precise motives behind the Ethereum ICO participant’s decision to consolidate these funds into a single wallet remain unclear. At the time of writing, there is no evidence of the funds being forwarded to an exchange or sold on a decentralized exchange.

Historically, comparable fund movements have been witnessed sporadically. As CryptoGlobe reported, earlier this year an Ethereum ICO participant staked $7.4 million after years of dormancy.

This move is potentially indicative of the whale’s optimistic outlook towards Ethereum, and, perhaps more broadly, the trajectory of digital assets. The whale’s move comes shortly after bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius moved to reclaim its Lido staked Ether (stETH) tokens from liquid staking platform Lido after the latter recently enabled withdrawals.

As CryptoGlobe recently reported, the Ethereum network has been seeing a mysterious entity catch the attention of the community after it started making millions of dollars and consuming a large percentage of the network’s gas fees, while operating a Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) bot.

According to a recently published report by blockchain data analysis firm EigenPhi, the operator of the MEV bot jaredfromsubway has been taking advantage of traders on the Ethereum blockchain since February 27, and has since made a staggering $40.6 million in revenue, and $34.5 million in profit.

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