On February 28, 2025, a significant Ethereum whale, active since 2016, reportedly sold 14,000 ETH through Wintermute OTC, totaling $31.92 million. This whale, identified by the address 0x035...8dFC7, had withdrawn 35,932 ETH at an average price of $203.22 between September 2016 and December 2018, as per data from Etherscan (Etherscan, 2025). The sale would result in a profit of $29.07 million for the whale. The whale's associated addresses have had multiple interactions with Wintermute, indicating a long-term relationship (Ai 姨, 2025). This event has caused notable ripples across the cryptocurrency market, particularly in the Ethereum ecosystem, due to the substantial volume and historical context of the whale's holdings.

The sale of 14,000 ETH at $2,280 per ETH on February 28, 2025, led to an immediate impact on Ethereum's price, which dropped by 2.3% within the hour, from $2,280 to $2,227, as reported by CoinMarketCap (CoinMarketCap, 2025). This price movement was accompanied by a surge in trading volume, with ETH/USD trading volume increasing by 45% to $12.5 billion in the same period, according to data from CryptoQuant (CryptoQuant, 2025). The ETH/BTC pair saw a similar increase in trading volume, rising by 30% to 5,500 BTC, suggesting a broader market reaction to the whale's sell-off (Binance, 2025). The ETH/USDT pair on Binance also experienced heightened volatility, with the price fluctuating between $2,220 and $2,240 within 30 minutes of the news breaking (Binance, 2025). This event underscores the significant influence of large holders on market dynamics and highlights the need for traders to monitor whale activity closely.

Technical indicators following the whale's sale showed increased bearish sentiment. The 1-hour ETH/USD chart displayed a bearish engulfing pattern at 14:00 UTC on February 28, 2025, signaling potential further downside, according to TradingView (TradingView, 2025). The Relative Strength Index (RSI) dropped from 62 to 55 within the same hour, indicating a shift from overbought to neutral territory (TradingView, 2025). On-chain metrics further confirmed the sell-off's impact, with the Network Realized Profit/Loss (NRPL) metric showing a significant spike in realized losses at 14:30 UTC, amounting to $15 million, as reported by Glassnode (Glassnode, 2025). The volume of transactions exceeding $100,000 also surged by 20% to 1,200 transactions, suggesting increased activity from large investors (CryptoQuant, 2025). These indicators collectively suggest that traders should be cautious and possibly consider short-term bearish positions in response to the whale's actions.

In the context of AI-related news, there has been no direct correlation reported between this whale's activity and AI developments. However, the broader market sentiment influenced by such large transactions can impact AI-related tokens. For instance, tokens like SingularityNET (AGIX) and Fetch.ai (FET) experienced a 1.5% and 1.2% drop respectively in the hour following the whale's sale, suggesting a possible ripple effect from Ethereum's price movement (CoinGecko, 2025). AI-driven trading algorithms, which often rely on market sentiment and volatility, may have contributed to increased trading volumes in these AI tokens, with AGIX/USD volume rising by 10% to $20 million and FET/USD by 8% to $15 million (CryptoQuant, 2025). Traders looking to capitalize on AI-crypto crossover should monitor these correlations and consider potential trading opportunities in AI tokens during such market events.