The price of PEPE fell dramatically on Saturday to reverse some of the gains made earlier in the week. Specifically, this price drop saw PEPE drop to $0.00001088, representing a 7.5% drop in 24 hours. While PEPE’s pricing problems are part of the broader market declineThe recent movement of whales appears to have worsened the situation.
Specifically, a crypto whale recently dumped a massive amount of PEPE tokens for ETH. On-chain data shows that a single wallet has exchanged over 1.4 trillion PEPE tokens for ETH, contributing to downward pressure on the price.
Expectations Grow for ETH Spot ETF Approvals
According to on-chain data from TheDataNerd, a notable PEPE whale going by the address “0x837” made a strategic shift by converting over $18 million from PEPE to Ethereum over the weekend. Such a large exit is a clear bearish signal for PEPE. These Ethereum holdings were then deployed to the Compound protocol, indicating a long-term investment.
On-chain data shows that the whale recently deposited 300 billion PEPE, worth approximately $3.85 million, to crypto exchange Binance. With this deposit, the whale suffered an estimated loss of $1.73 million. Interestingly enough, this was not a one-time deposit.
The whale had initially deposited 1.1 trillion PEPE tokens worth $14.42 million to Binance, which were also likely converted to ETH. Consequently, this whale has deposited 1.4 trillion PEPE to Binance in the past two days.
Additionally, on-chain data shows that whale “0x837” withdrew 1,728 ETH worth $5.86 million from Binance, bringing its accumulation to 4,374 ETH worth $14.91 million over the past two days.
The whale 0x837 already disables everything $PEPE go inside $ETH.
Three hours ago he pulled back 1,728 $ETH (~$5.86M) from #Binance 👉 he has collected 4,374 in total $ETH (~$14.91 million) over the past 2 days.
That $ETH were inserted #Link.https://t.co/vUBwSf5G90 photo.twitter.com/nU5YRUHXXM
— The Data Nerd (@OnchainDataNerd) June 29, 2024
Spot Ethereum ETFs Expected Launch
This whale’s decision to convert all its PEPE holdings into ETH despite the loss suggests a conscious strategic investment decision. This action reflects the market’s confidence in Ethereum, fueled by the potential launch of Spot Ethereum ETFs in July
Many market participants have drawn parallels with the events that occurred at the launch of Spot Bitcoin ETFs and have speculated that Ethereum could see a similar increaseAccording to Bryan Armour, ETF analyst at Morningstar, the launch of Spot Ethereum ETFs may not generate the same excitement as Bitcoin, given the differences in market caps of both cryptocurrencies.
At the time of writing, PEPE is trading at $0.00001129 and has recovered slightly from Saturday’s lows. However, the meme token has experienced a decline of 3.58% and 3.77% in the past 24 hours and seven days respectively. Ethereum has also experienced a 3.2% decline in the past seven days and is currently trading at $3,390.
Main image from Reddit, chart from TradingView