Fantom price pumps despite $260M FTM whale selloff

Layer1 (L1) blockchain network Fantom (FTM) rose by 10% in the last 24 hours to $0.51 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate’s data.

FTM is one of the best-performing digital assets in the current year — rising by more than 200% to as high as $0.65 as of Feb. 3, from a low of $0.1997 recorded on Jan. 1.

The positive price action coincided with a number of upgrades designed to increase the speed and throughput of the L1 blockchain network.

FTM whales are dumping

The positive price action has led to massive dumping among shark and whale addresses holding FTM.

A 41% drop in addresses holding between 10,000 to 100 million FTM tokens occurred, according to blockchain analytical firm Santiment.

Over the past month, these addresses have dumped roughly $260 million of the asset.

Meanwhile, the number of retail traders — micro addresses holding between 0.1 – 1 FTM — increased by 53% during the same period. This cohort has been aggressively buying during the whale dumping period, Santiment added.

DeFi activities soar

Decentralized finance (DeFi) activities within the Fantom ecosystem have also soared alongside the asset’s price rise.

The total value of assets (TVL) locked in Fantom rose by 5% to $506.28 million in the last 24 hours, according to DeFillama data.

The ecosystem’s TVL crossed $500 million for the first time in 2023 on Jan. 27 and touched a high of $577.06 million on Feb. 3 before retracing to its current levels, according to DeFillama data.