Whale purchases $1.7 billion in ETH futures, marking the largest hourly market order in seven months

By Jeet Adhvaryu On Jul 21, 2022

The continued Ethereum (ETH) network development is anticipated to have a favourable effect on the asset’s price in the future, despite a significant market drop in recent months.

By purchasing ETH futures, investors demonstrate their willingness to profit from a potential Ethereum surge.

In this context, on-chain activity shows that an Ethereum whale acquired an ETH futures contract worth $1.7 billion within an hour, according to data supplied by Web3 on-chain analyst Kate Young Ju via Twitter on July 20 cryptocurrency analytical site Crypto Quant.

Based on market orders, the buy represents the seven-monthly most significant hourly volume for Ethereum futures contracts. Notably, Ethereum futures are legal contracts to purchase or sell Ether at a future date, and their value is derived from Ether.

The whale activity on Ethereum suggests that the asset’s current rebound is gathering steam and may be sustainable. At the time of publication, the asset was trading at $1,500 after a seven-day increase of around 48 percent. The weekly gains surpass those of Ethereum’s competitor Bitcoin (BTC), which has seen a 19 percent increase within the same period.

Notably, the acquisition of Ethereum futures contracts matches the recent increase in whale activity over the last few days. After a gradual accumulation from mid- to late-June, Ethereum whales have boosted their hoarding activities to more than 20% as of July 18.

Impact of the Merge enhancement

The decentralised finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency is now preparing for the final migration to the Proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol from the energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism, with the Merge upgrade scheduled for late September. Ethereum has exhibited indications of recovery in tandem with the market after the upgrade.

Finbold said that 50 fintech leaders predicted that the second-ranked cryptocurrency would trade at $1,711 by the end of 2022, with the Merge upgrade having a significant influence.

As miners shift from Ethereum, the impending upgrade has also generated activity on other assets, such as Ethereum Classic (ETC). As the network readied itself to handle the PoW miners and the ETH hash rate after the upgrade release, ETC surged by over 50 percent in a week.

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