An enigmatic Bitcoin whale has just taken a huge $36 million bet on Ethereum by dumping hundreds of BTC to gobble up thousands of ETH as Ethereum, the second-largest crypto, attempts to rebound amid rising derivatives market activity.
Blockchain data tracker Lookonchain revealed that an anonymous investor dumped 410.14 BTC (worth around $34.16 million) on decentralized trading protocol Hyperliquid.
In a subsequent move, the whale bought 14,341 ETH, which is worth around $36.14M, via decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
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The identity of the whale and the motive behind the moves remain unknown.
The on-chain data indicated multiple transfers of UBTC (tokenized Bitcoin) from Hyperunit to the addresses of the whale.
Also, one of the addresses received 874,576 USDC via Hyperliquid's Bridge2 contract.
As for Ethereum, the whale-related addresses received hefty amounts of ETH via decentralized trading platforms.
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For instance, approximately 865.07 ETH worth $2.2M was received from Uniswap's V2DutchOrderReactor contract.
Another wallet address received 827.23 ETH, worth around $2.1M, from the same contract.
Ethereum price showing signs of outperformance vs. Bitcoin in the past 24 hours
These fresh purchases come as Ethereum is showing signs of outperforming Bitcoin in the past 24 hours.
Ethereum's price is currently hovering near $2,553, up by around 1.85% at the time of writing.
In comparison, the Bitcoin price is up by 0.93% during the same period.
However, the ETH price is still down by around 6.36% over the past 7 days.
Ethereum derivatives are showing a rise in bullish activity
The Ethereum whale's mega purchase is also happening amid rising activity in derivatives markets for Ethereum.
According to data from CoinGlass, the Ethereum futures market is seeing a volume of around $23.15B within the past 24 hours, compared to only $1.54B for spot trading.
The ETH futures market has an open interest of around $32.06B, indicating large exposure with leveraged bets.
Within the past 24 hours, there have been liquidations of around $48.12M in ETH futures positions.
Interestingly, liquidations in short positions have accounted for $38.11M, while only $10M was liquidated in long positions.