u.today
An Ethereum whale is making a bold bet on Bitcoin. The peculiarity of this switch lies in the fact that the whale, an Ethereum OG, referring to an early investor or $ETH adopter, held significant amounts of $ETH before this time.
According to Lookonchain, an Ethereum OG, which it calls "0x4553," is converting his $ETH holdings into Bitcoin.
This Ethereum OG bought 21,000 $ETH for $61.4 million at an average price of $2,922 between 2019 and 2023.
An #Ethereum OG (0x4553) is converting his $ETH holdings into $BTC.
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 3, 2026
Between 2019 and 2023, he bought 21,000 $ETH($61.4M) at an average price of $2,922.
Over the past 7 hours, he swapped 14,146 $ETH($44.3M) for 492 $WBTC, at a ratio of 0.03479.https://t.co/gKMsjNzX6Y pic.twitter.com/TC6TPJmb11
In a shift at 2026's start, the Ethereum whale swapped a substantial part of his Ethereum holdings for wrapped Bitcoin. Lookonchain reported that in recent hours, the $ETH whale swapped 14,146 $ETH worth $44.3 million for 492 WBTC at a ratio of 0.03479.
The exact reason for the shift remains unknown, but it seems to be due to personal reasons, rather than $ETH performance, as the switch coincided with a period of $ETH price rally. At the time of writing, $ETH was up 1.84% in the last 24 hours to $3,104 and up 5.94% weekly, outpacing Bitcoin in percentage gains.
The whale rotation from $ETH to $BTC marks the second of such instances in the last 24 hours; on Jan. 2, Lookonchain reported that an unknown whale, who lost $18.8 million on $ETH in just two weeks, abandoned $ETH and rotated into gold. The whale spent $14.58 million to buy 3,299 XAUT at a unit price of $4,421.
Ethereum sees inflows
The whale's rotation from $ETH to Bitcoin remains one of a few instances of such, with the broader scenario remaining one of $ETH accumulation.
According to Lookonchain, a whale or institution recently bought 12,166 $ETH worth $38.09 million from Coinbase, FalconX and Cumberland.
Another whale bought 5,104 $ETH worth $16.09 million. Since Dec. 3, the whale has bought 51,374 $ETH worth $159.76 million at an average price of $3,110.
Tom Lee's Bitmine staked another 82,560 $ETH worth $259 million, with the total staked by the Ethereum treasury firm at 544,064 $ETH worth $1.62 billion.
On Jan. 2, spot Ethereum ETFs saw total net inflows of $174 million, with Grayscale's ETHE posting the largest inflow at $53.69 million.