Ethereum price falls, but whales push holdings to 10-week high
Ethereum looks split down the middle. ETH is down more than 6% over the past week and has slipped back below $2,000. At the same time, the biggest wallets are still adding. Mega whales now hold 17.41 million ETH, or 22.03% of supply. Spot trading has also weakened in the second half of May. Odd setup.
Santiment says Ethereum wallets holding at least 100,000 ETH have been accumulating since the start of May. At current prices, that threshold is close to $200 million. I’ll be honest: that changes how I read the move. This is not dip-buying with loose change. It is the largest wallet cohort on the network raising exposure while price is weak. Their 17.41 million ETH balance is the highest in about nine weeks, and their 22.03% share of supply is the highest in 10 weeks.
Most guides treat whale accumulation as a clean bullish clue. That’s only half right. Whale buying does not repair a bad chart on its own, and ETH is still down more than 6% for the week. It has also moved below $2,000 for the first time since late March. Why does this matter? Because round numbers tend to pull in liquidity, alerts, stop orders, and lazy conviction. Once price loses $2,000, many desks wait for either a clean reclaim or a deeper selloff before taking more risk.
The macro backdrop is blunt. ETH still trades like a high-beta risk asset. If markets are worried about Fed policy, rates, and inflation, Ethereum will not be treated like cash, Treasury bills, or even BTC. My take: the 17.41 million ETH held by whales suggests large holders may be positioning before retail confidence returns, but that does not make the trade clean. Yes, this sounds bearish right after pointing to accumulation. Both can be true. If the next FOMC rate decision keeps risk appetite tight, whale buying may not be enough.
Bitcoin muddies it. CryptoQuant data showed Bitcoin whales added supply in January and February, but their 30-day supply change has moved back toward neutral. Smaller Bitcoin “dolphin” holders have slowed their buying too. CryptoQuant said longer periods of price weakness have often followed when both groups stall at the same time. That is not a direct ETH warning. Still, BTC usually sets the tone for crypto liquidity, and pretending ETH trades in a vacuum is a bad habit.
ETH whales are not behaving like Bitcoin’s large-holder groups. On Ethereum, wallets with 100,000 ETH or more have added since the start of May. On Bitcoin, whale and dolphin accumulation has cooled from January and February. Counter to the usual advice, the cleaner chart to watch may not be ETHUSDT alone. If BTC weakens while ETH whales keep taking supply off the market, ETH/BTC may say more than the dollar chart for a while.
There is also a quieter adoption signal in the data. A 100,000 ETH threshold, worth nearly $200 million, points to institutional-size positioning. The wallets could belong to funds or custodians. They could also belong to early investors or other large holders. Santiment’s data does not identify the buyers, and no named buyer has been quoted. I would not dress that up as certainty. Still, the behavior is specific: the largest Ethereum wallets are adding below $2,000, not chasing after a breakout.
That does not make this an easy bullish setup. Santiment’s chart still shows this mega-whale group has been in a broader decline since Q4 2025. The May buying matters. It has not proved the longer slide is over. Is this overkill to separate the two? No, because a short-term increase in holdings is a signal, while a trend reversal is a higher bar.
For ETH investors, this is the familiar uncomfortable split. On-chain supply is concentrating in the largest wallets, but price has failed to hold a major round number. In a strong market, that kind of divergence can come before a fast reversal. In a weak market, it can become a trap: whales early, retail cautious, liquidity thin, confirmation missing. I would watch the next few sessions more closely than the headline number.
What this means
Ethereum’s largest wallets are buying weakness instead of walking away. ETH below $2,000 after a drop of more than 6% is the price signal. The 17.41 million ETH held by 100,000+ ETH wallets is the on-chain counterpoint. For traders, the ticker is ETH and the level is obvious: a move back above $2,000 would make the whale buying easier to trust. Failure there keeps the late-May structure bearish. Simple as that.
Watch the May 31 monthly close, the next FOMC rate decision, CME ETH futures positioning, and whether Santiment’s 100,000+ ETH cohort keeps its 22.03% supply share near this 10-week high. The main technical level is still $2,000 on ETHUSDT. If ETH takes it back while BTC whale and dolphin accumulation stays neutral, Ethereum could start to separate. If ETH fades below $2,000 again, the market may treat May’s whale buying as early rather than decisive.