Dormant Ethereum (ETH) Whales Move 56,000 Coins to Exchanges in October

Dormant ICO-Era Wallets Return to the Market

The Ethereum (ETH) price sits near $2,316 on Thursday, down 2.6% over the past 24 hours, and on-chain records point to an unusually old source of the selling pressure: coins from addresses that had not moved in years are landing on major exchanges. On-chain data flagged more than 10 large transfers from long-dormant cold wallets between October 5 and 29, together carrying about 56,000 Ethereum (ETH), a stash worth more than $140 million at recent prices. Four of the five largest transfers went straight to Coinbase or Kraken, the venues with the deepest Ethereum order books in the United States. Exchange deposits of this size are watched closely because they convert long-static supply into potential sell-side inventory without any warning signal. Between them, the addresses span the network's first years of existence.

The biggest single move came on October 5, when a wallet whose owner reportedly bought 170,000 ETH in the 2015 ICO at $0.31 sent 13,330 ETH, then worth about $36.37 million, to Coinbase. Three days later, Lookonchain reported the deposit of 9,618 ETH to Kraken after the pinosaur.eth holder unstaked the position, a step that takes days on the consensus layer and points to planning rather than panic. Wallets reportedly linked to the Ethereum Foundation, the network's own steward, moved roughly 14,770 Ethereum (ETH) across three separate days. The latest transfer landed on October 29, when an address idle for three years emptied its entire 2,119 ETH balance into Coinbase.

@EmberCN · X post

Sent 13,330 ETH.

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Deposits of this kind typically settle into an exchange's hot wallet inventory, which leaves the coins in position to sell, though on-chain data cannot confirm whether a sale actually followed. The October sale moved only a small fraction of that 170,000 ETH allocation, which means one of the largest surviving ICO-era positions still holds most of its coins.

ETF Outflows Reach $1.35 Billion in October

The institutional side of the market has been leaving in parallel. US spot ETF products tied to Ethereum (ETH) saw net money leave on 17 of the month's 20 trading days to date, through October 28, meaning redemptions outpaced new subscriptions on all but three sessions. The monthly tally of net outflows from US Ethereum ETFs stands at roughly $1.35 billion, second only to November 2025's $1.42 billion. That puts October within about $78 million of the all-time record, with two sessions remaining. October 6 was the heaviest single day, when $201.89 million departed the funds in one session. Redemptions carry weight beyond sentiment, because a shrinking spot fund sells ETH from its custody reserves to pay redeeming shareholders, so a streak of this length turns into persistent daily sell orders wherever the coin trades.

The outflows landed while the coin itself fell 13.6% across the month so far, a pace that leaves Ethereum tracking its weakest October since 2018. The last deeper October drawdown came in that same year, at 15.5%. Seasonal data shows the coin closed 7 of its previous 11 Octobers higher, so this month's losses sit against a mixed record. History offers a hedge of a different kind: the coin fell in 6 of its last 11 Novembers, with a median loss of 5.18%, though the November average is positive at +4.28%. The two supply streams, fund redemptions and freshly deposited old coins, hit the market at once, and neither shows a clear pause: flows were still negative through October 28, and the final dormant deposit landed on October 29.

The composite support and resistance map puts the strongest floor at $2,229, scored 96 out of 100, and the heaviest ceiling at $2,419, a perfect 100, with spot pinned between them at $2,316, a few dollars below the $2,320 long-term average ETH defended after its slide from $2,800. The broader Ethereum technical analysis picture matches the monthly story: RSI at 35.23, trend labeled a downtrend. Positioning has not cracked, though: long/short accounts sit at 3.29 and funding is barely positive at 0.0013%, so the leveraged long cohort remains largely intact. Ted Pillows set $2,200 as his likely bottom on October 27, with a $2,400 reclaim as the first sign of strength. A daily close under $2,229 hands the floor to the $2,150 line near the 200-day average; clearing $2,419 is what would break the slide.