Amid the incessant bear market, whales appear to be waking up from their slumber to move their ETH holdings that were untouched for about four years.

According to the blockchain security company Peckshield Alert, large amounts of ETH were transferred on December 18th by two addresses that have remained dormant since October 2018.

Dormant ETH Wakes Up

22,982 ETH, which is worth approximately $27.2 million at current prices, were moved to two new addresses.

The emergence of old wallets from hibernation typically arouses more public interest, especially if it’s linked with troubled entities.

Meanwhile, in addition to ETH transfers, bankrupt crypto lender Three Arrows Capital (3AC) also moved a sizable chunk of ETH on December 19. The tokens in question – 2,000 ETH worth around $2.38 million – were withdrawn from Binance, while the embattled company’s address still holds 6,595 ETH worth nearly $7.85 million.

The latest development comes on the heels of significant price corrections in the market. Ethereum, for one, has shed over 20% of its gains seen since the past month dragging its price to a previous support level. After forming a local top at $1,352 last week, sellers took control to catalyze another leg down to $1,184.

Demand for Ethereum

2022 has been monumental for the Ethereum network (despite being disastrous for the overall crypto market). The much-hyped Merge, which introduced staked ETH as an out-and-out cryptocurrency-native yield-bearing instrument, managed to eclipse other collateralized yield-bearing services. Nansen’s recent report highlighted the significant demand for liquid Ethereum staking solutions as the cryptocurrency continued to be staked across several platforms in the months following the shift to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

While stETH saw over 127% increase in average daily trading volume since the upgrade, there have been very few material changes in ETH’s price. However, some big price action may be expected as the network anticipates another hard fork, called “Shanghai,” slated for March 2023 release.

The next phase in Ethereum’s pipeline is the introduction of sharding – a feature that is expected to significantly ramp up transaction throughput.