A Bitcoin whale holding approximately $5 billion in BTC has executed a massive rotation into Ethereum, converting $2.7 billion worth of Bitcoin into ETH in late August 2025. The whale, identified through on-chain analytics by Arkham Intelligence, utilized the Hyperunit platform to methodically exchange BTC for ETH in small batches of 1-1.5 BTC at a time.
The transaction caused immediate market impacts: Bitcoin's price dropped sharply to $109,000, triggering approximately $900 million in liquidations across the market. Meanwhile, Ethereum saw a 9% price increase and experienced record-high staking exit queues as validators potentially sought to capitalize on the price surge.
Arkham Intelligence reported that this same whale had previously purchased $2.5 billion worth of ETH the previous week, indicating a sustained shift in investment strategy. The wallet address ending in "eCb43" received 2,000 BTC (worth over $216 million) in two transactions before systematically converting it to more than 42,750 ETH.
Historical patterns suggest such whale rotations have preceded significant ETH surges and temporary BTC weaknesses, similar to patterns observed during the 2021-2022 cycles. The movement represents one of the largest single-entity portfolio shifts from Bitcoin to Ethereum in cryptocurrency history.