Whale Accumulation Hits Six-Year High as Ethereum Eyes $4K Breakout

• Ethereum whales acquired almost 1 million $ETH on a single day, which was the largest one-day aggregation since 2018.
• Exchange reserves remain at multi-year lows, with staking and long-term holding rising.
• A surge above $2,700 might signal a surge towards $4,000; however, rejection could give rise to a revisit of the 2,000 level.

On-chain data shows that Ethereum whales took out almost 1 million $ETH on a day, the largest daily acquisition since 2018. This massive spike is preceded by a tendency towards increased confidence among investors despite all the current uncertainty in the market.

As of writing, Ethereum has declined by 2% to close at $2,533, following a 10% weekly correction. Nevertheless, the magnitude of this whale hoarding is an indication of a breakout revival.

According to the Glassnode chart, there is a distinct increasing pattern in $ETH holdings by addresses with 1,000 to 10,000 Ether. These addresses have now totaled approximately 14 million $ETH, breaking multi-year loss trends.

The move comes as staking has recently exploded with more than 35 million $ETH currently locked, representing 28.3% of the supply. Strikingly, in June, there were over 500,000 $ETH staked.

Supply Dwindles as Long-Term Holders Step In

Ethereum reserves on centralized exchanges are currently down to 18.7 million $ETH, the lowest since years. This current outflow, which has been witnessed by CryptoQuant data, is an increasing long-term holding trend. The exchange netflows have been negative, and this flow has been steady, indicating that more $ETH has been leaving exchanges than entering.

Source: CryptoQuant

Addresses with no history of selling now control an all-time high of 22.8 million $ETH. This behavior, coupled with increased staking and whale buys, indicates reduced selling pressure in the short term. When exchange reserves fall while price stabilizes, it often points to suppressed sell-side liquidity, potentially setting the stage for a supply squeeze if demand rises.

Source: CryptoQuant

Breakout Imminent or Another Rejection?

The 50-week exponential moving average (EMA) is now the focus, currently ranging between $2,650 and $2,700. $ETH has repeatedly been unable to create a close above this level. However, historical breakouts of this area have led to rallies of 25% to 135%, according to crypto analyst İbrahim COŞAR.

Should Ethereum break this mark, a technical forecast indicates that the first major objective would be at the price of $4,000. This price also coincides with the upper end of a long-term bullish flag pattern. In an upswing, more bullish Fibonacci extension levels are at prices of $5,817 and $8,549.

However, the inability to break the 50-week EMA may trigger a pullback to the support at the $2,000-$2,050 marks, which also correlates with the 0.786 Fibonacci retracement level and past support. The on-chain data indicates that the active addresses are at moderate numbers of about 384,000, which could require an uptick in order to maintain an upward trend of data.