Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin has reportedly transferred a staggering 3000 ETH tokens from his publicly labeled Ethereum wallet, Vitalik.eth to a wallet address labeled “Vb 2.”
In the recent development reported by PeckShieldAlert, the transaction was made to the wallet address 0x1Db3439a222C519ab44bb1144fC28167b4Fa6E. The transfer in the early hours of August 28 totaled $4.95 million.
According to data from Etherescan – an Ethereum block explorer and analytics platform, the total value of ETH held in the Vb 2 wallet is now about 3,018 ETH (a little under $5 million).
#PeckShieldAlert vitalik.eth labeled-address has transferred 3K $ETH (~$4.95M) to Vb 2 labeled-address pic.twitter.com/f8ETU42TrD
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— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 28, 2023
Possible reasons for the transfer
With Vitalik being a prominent figure in the crypto space and the amount of influence he holds, the move immediately sparked reactions among the crypto community.
There have been speculations as to the reason for the transfer. One explanation for this is a possible redistribution across his wallets to reduce hacking risks. Crypto investors often carry out this technique to protect their assets against loss as crypto scams and hacks continue to rise significantly.
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Another reason for this can be a possible cashing out on profits. Since the Bitcoin Magazine’s report on SpaceX allegedly selling off its Bitcoin holdings on August 18, the entire crypto market has been experiencing a downturn.
Vitalik Buterin may have made the transfer as a strategic decision to actively take profit from his ETH. It is important to note that huge market-wide corrections frequently occur at the same time as large sell-offs from powerful individuals like Buterin.
The latest data shows that the Vitalik.eth wallet address now holds a total of 73 ETH (approximately $119,860). It is also important to note that over the past 5 years, Vitalik has been known to actively move a sizeable amount of his ETH holdings.
In fact, recently he transferred 600 ETH (approximately $1 million) from his wallet to the U.S-based Coinbase exchange. While there are still speculations as to the reasons behind the transfer, it is possible that the move could have possible implications for the global market.
Ethereum (ETH) price today
Following the transaction, Ethereum is currently trading at $1,633 today. The price is down about 1.02% in the last 24 hours. What’s more, Ethereum has a 24-hour trading volume of $3,636,319,512 ($3.6 billion) and is ranked #2 on the global market chart. Finally, according to data from CoinMarketCap, Ethereum has a live market cap of $196,330,831,927 ($196 billion).