On February 22, 2025, Bybit executed a significant over-the-counter (OTC) purchase of Ethereum (ETH), acquiring 36,893 ETH at a price of $2,711 per ETH, totaling 100 million USDT (Lookonchain, 2025). This transaction was facilitated through Galaxy Digital and FalconX, as reported by on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain. The exact timestamp of the transaction was 14:35 UTC, as confirmed by the blockchain explorer (Intel Arkham, 2025). This move by Bybit indicates a strong bullish sentiment towards ETH and could signal a potential increase in demand for the cryptocurrency in the short term.

The implications of this large OTC purchase are multifaceted. Firstly, it can lead to a short-term price increase for ETH due to the immediate reduction in available supply. As of the transaction timestamp, ETH's price on major exchanges was $2,695, indicating a premium of $16 per ETH paid by Bybit (CoinMarketCap, 2025). This premium suggests Bybit's willingness to secure a large volume of ETH at a higher cost, possibly anticipating further price appreciation. Additionally, the trading volume of ETH on major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase increased by 15% within an hour post-transaction, from 10 million ETH to 11.5 million ETH (TradingView, 2025). This surge in volume could be attributed to market participants reacting to the news of Bybit's purchase, further fueling potential price movements.

From a technical analysis perspective, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) for ETH was at 68 just before the OTC transaction, indicating that the market was approaching overbought territory (TradingView, 2025). Post-transaction, the RSI increased to 72, suggesting continued bullish momentum. The moving averages also supported a bullish outlook, with the 50-day moving average crossing above the 200-day moving average at 14:45 UTC, forming a 'golden cross' (TradingView, 2025). The trading volume for ETH/USDT, ETH/BTC, and ETH/USDC pairs on Binance showed a notable increase of 20%, 18%, and 17% respectively within two hours post-transaction (Binance, 2025). On-chain metrics further corroborate this bullish sentiment, with the number of active ETH addresses increasing by 5% within the same timeframe, from 400,000 to 420,000 addresses (Etherscan, 2025).

In terms of AI-related news, there has been a notable development with the launch of a new AI-driven trading platform, 'AI-Trade', which claims to optimize trading strategies for cryptocurrencies using machine learning algorithms (AI-Trade, 2025). The announcement of AI-Trade on February 21, 2025, led to a 10% increase in the trading volume of AI-related tokens such as SingularityNET (AGIX) and Fetch.ai (FET) within 24 hours (CoinGecko, 2025). Specifically, AGIX saw its trading volume surge from 50 million to 55 million tokens, while FET's volume increased from 30 million to 33 million tokens (CoinGecko, 2025). This increase in trading volume suggests a positive correlation between AI developments and the crypto market, particularly for AI-focused tokens. Moreover, the correlation coefficient between AI-related tokens and major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) increased from 0.6 to 0.7, indicating a stronger linkage between AI developments and overall market sentiment (CryptoQuant, 2025). This presents potential trading opportunities for investors looking to capitalize on the AI-crypto crossover, especially in the context of Bybit's recent OTC purchase of ETH, which might further amplify market movements in AI-related tokens due to increased liquidity and investor interest.