When Ethereum wobbled this week, deep-pocketed buyers didn’t flinch—they bought the dip. Multiple on-chain dashboards and media reports point to roughly $360 million in ETH accumulation by large holders over the past several days, with at least one wallet snapping up two blocks of 10,000 ETH as prices fell. Another whale routed a 24,007 ETH (~$84M) purchase through an over-the-counter desk. The activity adds fresh fuel to the debate over whether whale accumulation precedes recoveries—or simply absorbs short-term panic selling.
Confirming signals from on-chain watchers
Independent trackers have flagged similar behavior. Lookonchain, which follows “smart money” wallets on public ledgers, noted continued dip-buying by an ETH whale that added 25,004 ETH around Nov. 6—consistent with broader accumulation patterns seen during down days.
Zooming out, a Yahoo Finance roundup last week put the size of ETH whale buys at about $1.37B during a 12% November pullback (its figure aggregates multiple wallets and days), suggesting the ForkLog-tallied $360M sits within a wider wave of large-holder accumulation. As always, the exact amounts depend on methodology, but the direction—buying into weakness—shows up across datasets.
Why whales might be buying now
There are a few plausible drivers:
- Valuation reset after a sharp slide. Fast drops often force liquidations and create liquidity pockets. Bigger players with longer time horizons use those pockets to refill. (Related headlines this month documented heavy ETH long liquidations during intraday sell-offs.)
- OTC rails are warm. The Galaxy Digital path on the 24,007-ETH buy mirrors prior periods where whales sourced size off-exchange to avoid slippage, then deployed on-chain. Arkham has previously tracked whale-scale ETH acquisitions via OTC desks—an important clue for reading block-sized moves.
- Positioning ahead of catalysts. While speculation varies, large accounts often build positions before news (product launches, regulatory milestones, or macro events). The presence of multiple, unrelated whale wallets buying within days hints at portfolio rebalancing more than a one-off impulse.
What the flows don’t prove
Whale buying doesn’t guarantee a straight-line ETH price recovery. Big bids can stabilize order books without flipping the trend, particularly if macro conditions stay choppy or if sellers keep using rallies to exit. On-chain watchers will look for follow-through: sustained accumulation by top wallets, declining exchange balances, and stronger spot inflows on green days—not just one-and-done clips.
It’s also worth recalling that whale trades cut both ways. The same dashboards that spotlight accumulation also catch distribution after pops. Context matters: are the buyers long-term treasuries, funds rotating from BTC, or short-term desks running basis trades? The different motives can lead to very different holding periods.
How to track whether the bid continues
If you’re watching Ethereum news and want to verify whether whales keep adding:
- Monitor labeled wallets on Arkham or similar platforms for additional 5–10k ETH clips (typical whale-sized prints). Look for OTC-to-self-custody paths or large CEX withdrawals into fresh wallets.
- Follow real-time whale alerts (Lookonchain, others) for updates on cumulative buys/sells; persistence over several sessions is more meaningful than a single spike.
- Cross-check media roundups that aggregate on-chain data into weekly totals to avoid over-weighting one wallet’s behavior.
Market read: tentative vote of confidence
Taken together, the two 10,000-ETH purchases, the 24,007-ETH OTC buy, and the broader uptick in big-ticket orders look like a vote of confidence in ETH at lower levels. Even if timing the exact bottom is a fool’s errand, whales tend to prefer building on red candles rather than competing on green ones. For retail traders, the practical takeaway isn’t “follow whales blindly,” but watch persistence of accumulation: when large holders keep buying dips across multiple sessions, it often dampens volatility and improves liquidity on rebounds.
The conclusion
- Large ETH holders accumulated roughly $360M over the past week, including a buyer who took two 10,000-ETH tranches and another wallet that routed 24,007 ETH via Galaxy Digital’s OTC desk, per ForkLog’s summarization of Arkham/Etherscan traces.
- Real-time trackers corroborate ongoing dip-buying—Lookonchain flagged another ~25k ETH addition around Nov. 6—while broader tallies show >$1B in whale accumulation during November’s pullback.
- Implication: whales are buying into weakness, but durability depends on whether accumulation persists and whether macro flows cooperate. Keep an eye on labeled wallets and exchange balances to see if this bid sticks.