Crypto whales buy $456M Ether in 'natural rotation' from Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency whales, or big investors, are buying hundreds of millions of Ether, as analysts point to an organic rotation of investor mindshare toward altcoins with more upside potential.

Nine “massive” whale addresses bought a cumulative $456 million worth of Ether from Bitgo and Galaxy Digital, blockchain data platform Arkham said in a Tuesday X post.

The growing whale demand for the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency signals the market’s "natural rotation” into Ether and other altcoins with more upside potential, according to Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen.

“A lot of this looks like natural rotation, investors locking in profits from Bitcoin’s run and moving into other tokens to catch potential upside,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Ether in particular is benefiting because it has strong current mindshare and momentum from Ether treasury companies.”

While recent Ether whale movements are “notable,” the “broader trend is simply that flows are spreading out beyond Bitcoin as market participants look for the next move,” the analyst said.

Still, the increasing Bitcoin profit taking may be a precursor to more “investor mindshare” focusing on Ether, Sondergaard added.

Crypto analyst Willy Woo also pointed to the growing capital rotation from Bitcoin into Ether.

“Flows into ETH, at 0.9B USD per day (silver), is now approaching BTC's inflows (orange),” wrote the analyst in a Tuesday X post, adding that the latest streak of inflows “started when Tom Lee's ETH treasury co, BitMine, started their ETH accumulation.”

These comments came a week after a Bitcoin whale worth more than $11 billion sold $2.59 billion worth of Bitcoin, rotating the funds into a $2.2 billion spot Ether and a $577 million Ether perpetual long position on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, Cointelegraph reported.

Smart money traders are buying altcoins: Nansen data

The industry’s most successful cryptocurrency traders by returns, tracked as “smart money” traders on Nansen’s blockchain intelligence platform, are already rotating into altcoins, stoking investor expectations of a 2025 altcoin season.

Looking at their most significant large-cap token acquisitions, smart money traders acquired $1.2 million worth of Chainlink (LINK) tokens, $967,000 worth of Ethena (ENA) and $614,000 worth of Lido DAO (LDO) tokens, Nansen data shows.

The growing LINK acquisitions may have come in response to Bitwise Asset Management filing to launch a LINK-based exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Cointelegraph reported on Tuesday.

Yet, these cumulative altcoin acquisitions pale in comparison to the $28 million Ether acquired by a dormant whale, who has been inactive since 2021, Cointelegraph reported on Tuesday.