Ethereum ICO-Era Whale Suddenly Springs To Life After 8-Year Hibernation, Stakes $645 Million ETH

An early Ether (ETH) investor that has been dormant for over eight years, has awakened and made one of the largest staking deposits in recent ￰0￱ to on-chain data spotlighted by Lookonchain , three addresses that snapped up 1 million Ether tokens during the initial coin offering (ICO) in 2015 transferred a combined amount of $645 million worth of funds on Thursday to a staking ￰1￱ anonymous whale initially purchased the coins for $310,000 at $0.31 per ￰2￱ stash is now valued around $4.3 ￰3￱ to Thursday’s action, the three wallets had been inactive since February 2022, when they conducted non-ETH ￰4￱ this week’s staking, two wallets still hold another 105,000 ETH, valued at $451 ￰5￱ #Ethereum ICO participant who received 1,000,000 $ETH just woke up after 8 years of ￰6￱ moved 150,000 $ETH ($645M) to a new wallet for ￰7￱ invested $310K in the ICO via 3 wallets and received 1,000,000 $ETH — now worth $4.3B.

After staking 150,000 $ETH , he… ￰8￱ — Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 5, 2025 It’s the latest in a slew of reactivating ICO whale ￰9￱ August, one ICO whale moved $19 million worth of ETH to the Kraken crypto exchange, before selling another 1,060 ETH days ￰10￱ ICO participant also sold 2,300 ETH last ￰11￱ registered a new all-time high of $4,946.05 late last month and is up an impressive 70% over the last three ￰12￱ second-largest cryptocurrency was now changing hands at $4,329 as of publication ￰13￱ optimism regarding Ether has surged in recent months following the passage of landmark crypto regulation that could benefit the network, and amid rapidly increasing institutional demand for the asset that has sparked huge inflows into spot ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

ETH Accumulation Heats Up Meanwhile, retail whales and financial institutions have continued to aggressively amass ￰14￱ have purchased 218,750 ETH, worth $942.8 million, over the last two days alone, as spotted by ￰15￱ and institutions bought a massive 218,750 $ETH ($942.8M) in the past 2 ￰16￱ bought 69,603 $ETH ($300M) from BitGo and Galaxy Digital. 5 newly created wallets bought 102,455 $ETH ($441.6M) from ￰17￱ — Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 5, 2025 Peter Thiel-backed Bitmine Immersion Tech , which has become the largest corporate holder of Ether, scooped up 69,603 ETH for approximately $300 million through BitGo and Galaxy Digital’s over-the-counter ￰18￱ currently holds more than 1.75 million ETH, worth over $7.6 billion.

Runner-up Ether treasury firm SharpLink Gaming announced earlier this week that it purchased 39,008 ETH, pushing its total stockpile to 837,230 ETH. Additionally, five wallets that were recently created purchased 102,455 ETH, equivalent to $442 million, through FalconX.