The Ethereum Foundation Sold At The Top Again. Did They Know Something We Didn’t?

Apparently, the Ethereum Foundation employs incredible traders. Once again, they managed to cash out at the very top. On November 16th, ETH was worth an all-time high of $4891. On the very next day, the Ethereum Foundation sent 20,000 ETH to Kraken and sold them. Is this suspicious at all? Not per se, but this is the second time that they pull the same magic move. 

Related Reading | Why The Ethereum Foundation Launched A Client Incentive Program

A professional trader that goes by the name Edward Morra on Twitter was the first to spot the trade. “Friendly reminder that ETH foundation cashed out at the top (again). ETH down 40+% since then,” he said. Morra also provided a chart that shows ETH’s sharp decline in price since the sale.

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To add insult to injury, the Ethereum Foundation only paid $20 in gas fees. That might be the most impressive feat of them all.

At the time of writing, the Ethereum Foundation’s wallet holds 353,318 ETH, which is approximately $835K at current prices.

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What Do We Know About The Organization’s Previous Sell-Off?

Back to Morra, his Twitter followers told him that this information was of no use to them this late in the game. The trader surprised the world and pulled an ace up his sleeve. As it turns out, Morra tweeted about the trade at the time it happened. Not only that, he warned them, “They cashed out 35k ETH on 17th of May this year, marked on the chart.”

As you can see on the chart, on May 17th the price of ETH was near its previous peak. And after the Ethereum Foundation sold, ETH trended down for months and months. Is this a coincidence? Does the foundation employ great traders? Or, is there something else to this story? Did they dump on retail ETH holders? Did the Ethereum Foundation know anything that the rest of the world didn’t?

At the time of the first sell-off, journalist Colin Wu highlighted the trade and said, “The Ethereum Foundation transferred 35,000 Eth to the Kraken Exchange on May 17. Vitalik said bubbles could have ended already on May 20.” Analyzing the move, Wu said, “This is a normal operation, but it also means that the Foundation thought that bear market is coming.”

The gas fee for this operation was 0.00240474 ETH, or $5.66 at the time of writing. Wow.

ETHUSD price chart for 01/25/2022 - TradingView

ETH price chart for 01/25/2022 on Bitfinex | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

What’s The Ethereum Foundation Anyway?

According to Ethereum’s official site:

“The EF is not a company, or even a traditional non-profit. Their role is not to control or lead Ethereum, nor they are the only organization that funds critical development of Ethereum-related technologies. The EF is one part of a much larger ecosystem.”

The Ethereum Foundation distributes funds to developers via the Ecosystem Support Program and the Fellowship Program, organizes Devcom, and more. To do all that, they surely need Fiat currency in some capacity. The trade makes sense from that angle.

Related Reading | Ethereum Foundation Devs Discuss ETH2 Launch & Economics

The question, though, is, did they know that a crash was coming? And if they did, did they reach that conclusion through technical and on-chain analysis or by… other methods?

Featured Image by PatriestB on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

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Polygon Sets New All-Time High Amid Market Recovery

Key Takeaways

  • Polygon’s MATIC token hit a price of $2.66 for the first time today.
  • While Polygon started as a low cost way to access DeFi, it has since pivoted to other uses such as blockchain gaming.
  • Polygon’s acquisition and development of ZK-Rollup scaling solutions has made it a good choice for those wanting to invest in the technology.


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Polygon has broken past its previous all-time high of $2.62 following a 64% rally over the past month. 

Polygon Makes New Highs

Polygon is closing out 2021 in bullish form.

The Ethereum scaling solution’s MATIC token has moved higher today, gaining 14.4% to reach a new all-time high of $2.66. It’s since cooled off, currently trading at $2.61.

MATIC/USD chart. Source: CoinGecko

MATIC’s previous all-time high of $2.62 was achieved seven months ago in May, just days before the cryptocurrency market experienced its most brutal sell-off of the year. Since then, the token went into a long accumulation phase bringing it down to lows of $0.69 in July. 



However, as the wider market recovered in August, Polygon once again showed strength and has steadily climbed back to its pre-crash price levels over the second half of the year. 

While Polygon’s spring rally was mainly fueled by Ethereum DeFi projects launching on the chain, it has since expanded to other use cases. Blockchain gaming has exploded on Polygon, with over 70% of unique active wallets on the network playing blockchain games as of Nov. 5. 

Additionally, Polygon has pivoted toward new and improved scaling solutions using Zero-Knowledge Rollups. In addition to its own ZK-rollup, Miden, Polygon has acquired two more scaling solutions, Hermez and Mir, using its $1 billion treasury fund dedicated to acquiring ZK-based projects.

Another development that factors into Polygon’s adoption is its interoperability with other chains. Over the past few months, several new bridges have been launched, allowing users to quickly send funds from Ethereum Layer 2 solutions and dedicated Layer 1 chains to and from Polygon at low cost. 


More recently, Uniswap, Ethereum’s biggest decentralized exchange by volume, approved a governance proposal to support the Polygon blockchain. When Uniswap eventually launches on Polygon, it could potentially spur a DeFi renaissance and bring more liquidity to the network. 

Whether the MATIC token will continue its current rally remains to be seen, though the broader crypto market has been showing signs of recovery over the last few days following a shaky few weeks. However, as the excitement surrounding ZK-Rollup-based Ethereum scaling increases, Polygon looks poised to benefit from the growth of the emerging technology. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies. 

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Terra Climbs to New Highs Becoming the Second Largest DeFi Network

Key Takeaways

  • Terra has become the second-largest DeFi network, overtaking Binance Smart Chain.
  • The network’s native LUNA token has also reached a new all-time high of $84.92.
  • LUNA’s price appreciation, together with new DeFi protocols on Terra have helped the network reach the number two spot.




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Terra has overtaken Binance Smart Chain in total value locked, becoming the second-largest DeFi network behind Ethereum. 

Terra Takes Second Rank

DeFi on Terra is booming.

The network surpassed Binance Smart Chain in total value locked in DeFi protocols over the weekend, as its native LUNA token climbed to new all-time highs.

Currently, Terra hosts over $18 billion worth of assets across its 13 DeFi protocols. A combination of increasing prices and liquidity from new protocols has propelled the total value locked on the network to the number two spot behind Ethereum. 



Since breaking past its prior all-time high at the end of November, Terra’s LUNA token has soared, recovering quickly while the rest of the market dipped. Today, LUNA shot to a new all-time high of $84.92, putting it up more than 85% over the past month. 

LUNA/USD chart. Source: CoinGecko

The diminishing supply of LUNA tokens on the market is likely pushing the price of LUNA higher. For example, the Terra community voted to burn around 10% of the LUNA token supply worth approximately $4 billion in October. 

Additionally, the increasing demand for UST, Terra’s native, algorithmically-pegged stablecoin, also affects LUNA’s price. UST can be minted by burning $1 worth of LUNA in exchange, decreasing the LUNA supply as more stablecoins are produced. 

While LUNA’s price appreciation has helped Terra become the second-largest DeFi network, the launch of new protocols has also attracted more liquidity. Astroport, a new decentralized exchange launching on Terra, has brought more money into the ecosystem with its highly-anticipated “lockdrop.” 


Users who lock up their liquidity in the protocol will receive ASTRO token airdrops depending on the amount of time they lock up their assets for. So far, over $1.1 billion worth of assets have been committed to Astroport in this way, with more than half of that value consisting of LUNA tokens, further reducing the liquid supply on the market. 

While the total value locked on Terra has increased significantly, other Layer 1 chains have lagged. For example, Binance Smart Chain has failed to break past its previous all-time high total value locked of $31.6 billion achieved in May. 

While other Layer 1s such as Avalanche and Solana have experienced steady growth, they have been unable to keep pace with Terra over the past month. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned LUNA and several other cryptocurrencies.



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New ATH renews faith in PlanB’s prediction of $98K BTC by December

Bitcoin (BTC) has broken into new all-time highs, with the asset last changing hands in the mid $67,000-range.

During the final hour of Nov. 8 UTC time, BTC pushed into uncharted prices, with bulls firmly taking control of the markets as price action retested Oct. 20’s previous high of roughly $67,000.

BTC/USD: TradingView

The milestone comes on a historic date for Bitcoin, with analysts noting that Bitcoin’s market cap pushed above $1 million for the first time on Nov. 8, 2010.

Crypto Twitter appears to be rejoicing over the new all-time high, with many onlookers appearing to read the price-high as restoring their faith in the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model from the pseudonymous analyst “PlanB” — which has gained significant popularity due to its eerie accuracy in predicting monthly closing prices for BTC.

The model measures the outstanding reserves of a given asset divided by its rate of annual production. PlanB first published their S2F model in March 2019 in a bid to quantify, measure, and predict the scarcity of Bitcoins, then estimating that Bitcoin would reach a market cap of $1 trillion after the May 2020 halving.

Using S2F, PlanB predicted with startling accuracy that Bitcoin would close August near $47,000 and end September near $43,000, while over-estimating October’s closing price by just 3%.

Looking ahead, S2F suggests that Bitcoin will close November above $98,000 and tag $135,000 by the end of the year, with many punters basing predictions that Bitcoin will trade in the six-figure price range before 2022 on PlanB’s outlook for the markets.

Related: Bitcoin hodlers ‘only halfway’ to selling BTC after new $500K price prediction

PlanB also pioneered the Stock-to-Flow Cross-Asset (S2FX) model in April 2020, which seeks to predict how the BTC markets may respond to changes in S2F dynamics based on how gold and silver have performed historically.

Using the S2FX model, PlanB has speculated that this bull cycle could see Bitcoin trade for $288,000 next year, with the analyst stating the markets will need to see “some real fireworks in 2022” for the projection to play out.

A recent Twitter poll from PlanB found that of 242,000 respondents, 39.8% believe Bitcoin will top out above $100,000 by Christmas, while 31.4% expect BTC to be trading for $288,000, and 23.8% anticipate the markets will fail to break above six-figures by Dec. 25.