Ethereum has seen a number of notable withdrawals that suggests that crypto whales are expecting a recovery in price. These large withdrawals has caused the ETH balances on centralized exchanges to fall to their lowest level since 2016.
Crypto analyst Ash Crypto took to X (formerly Twitter) to reveal a notable change in the amount of ETH that is being held on centralized exchanges currently. Notably, there has been a marked increase in the withdrawals of small and large investors alike, leading to the highest withdrawal trend of 2024 so far.
The report focuses on the withdrawals from the Coinbase exchange, which is the largest crypto exchange in the United States. The uptick in the withdrawal trend saw a whopping 336,000 ETH withdrawn from the exchange’s wallets in just 48 hours. This translates to the highest withdrawal trend from the exchange so far this year.
However, Coinbase wasn’t the only crypto exchange hit hard by the Ethereum withdrawals as the cumulative exchange addresses saw their ETH balances fall drastically. As the on-chain tracker Santiment revealed in a report, the total ETH held on centralized exchange wallets has fallen 8.6% in the last two weeks alone.
These withdrawals have greatly impacted the exchange balances, causing them to fall to their lowest point in 8 years. This means that the last time that the exchange balances were this low was back in 2016, which is three bull markets ago.
Naturally, the withdrawal of Ethereum from exchanges is bullish given that this is a trend that suggests investors are choosing to hold their Ethereum coins rather than sell them. If coins were moving the other direction and being deposited on exchanges instead, it would’ve been bearish for the price as it meant that investors were looking to offload their holdings for profit.
Crypto analyst Ash Crypto shares the sentiment that the withdrawals are bullish for the price. According to the analyst, with Spot Ethereum ETFs set to start trading in 2024 in addition to this, it means that the ETH price trading above $10,000 is just a matter of time.
Presently, the ETH price is still closely following the Bitcoin trend. It has recovered above $3,500 once more after initially falling below this support level on Thursday. Nonetheless, it continues to nurse losses on the weekly chart, with CoinMarketCap data showing a decline of 7.88%.