2026

Gemini

Onchain analyst Ai Yi linked a second dormant ether wallet to an early buyer who paid about $18 a coin, bringing the buyer’s suspected sales to ~6,000 ETH since August 2025.Those coins were worth ~$15.85M at the time of hitting exchanges.
The more recent wallet shifted 3,000 ETH, valued at about $7.23 million, to a Kraken deposit address on Oct. 22.
<h3 id="span-style-font-weight-400-ai-yi-puts-combined-profit-above-15-74-million-span">Ai Yi puts combined profit above $15.74 million</h3>
Ai Yi marked address 0xa4c…F02D0 on October 23 in a Chinese post, pointing out that the buyer wasn’t done selling yet.
The analyst said that the address could be linked to the same whale as a wallet that had been tracked before because the buy timing, funding source, and deposit method all matched.
If the link holds, all 6,000 ETH were deposited at an average deposit price of $2,642.42. Combined return estimated at over 139x, total profit at over $15.74 million, per Ai Yi.
<figure style="width: 100%" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img src="https://www.cryptopolitan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2026-10-24-linked-wallets-18-eth-buyer-sales-6000-01.png" alt="Linked wallets put $18 ETH buyer's sales at 6,000." width="623" height="791">
 <figcaption>
 Ai Yi’s post tying the two wallets together, above a transfer list of the 2017 buyer’s Kraken deposits, posted by @ai_9684xtpa on <a href="https://x.com/ai_9684xtpa/status/2113449249283391490" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">X</a> on October 23, 2026.
 </figcaption>
</figure>
The previous wallet moved 3,000 ETH from Gemini nine years ago, which was worth ~$56,400 at the time. It sat inactive until August 2025, then started feeding coins to exchanges in batches.
By September 29, trackers had it selling 2,000 ETH at an average price of $3,096 or $6.19 million total. The last 1,000 ETH left on Oct. 20 and Ai Yi pegged the average deposit price of that wallet at $2,874.17, a 151.7x return.
In a post on Oct. 21, Ai Yi said that the earlier wallet was probably empty. If they sold all of the coins, they would make about $8.57 million in profit.
<h3 id="span-style-font-weight-400-a-7-23-million-batch-lands-at-kraken-after-eight-idle-years-span">A $7.23 million batch lands at Kraken after eight idle years</h3>
Onchain data shows 3,000 ETH moved from a Gemini hot wallet around 9 years ago, worth ~$56,480 or $18.83 a coin. The coins went through two intermediary wallets before arriving at 0xa4c… in August 2018.
They hung on for eight years. All 3,000 ETH were transferred to Kraken in one transaction at 14:49 UTC on October 22.
Ether close to $2,410, a 128x return. Trackers priced the batch at $7.23 million.
They logged it as a sale, but so far, the chain only shows a Kraken deposit.
Other early holders also moved coins this month. One, bought at $14, deposited 6,369 ETH, or about $16 million, to Kraken.
A 2015 ICO participant who purchased 170,000 ETH at $0.31 sent 13,330 ETH to Coinbase.
Ether trades near $2,400 after running from below $2,000 to $2,800 and stalling. Outflows persist for spot ether ETFs.
Tom Lee’s Bitmine, the biggest corporate buyer of ether, said it will cease buying ETH at 5% of supply.
Near-record 44.1M ETH are staked. In February, <a href="https://www.cryptopolitan.com/ethereum-whale-wallets-shed-reserves-2026/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cryptopolitan</a> wrote that wallets holding 1,000 ETH or more shrank their holdings by as much as 1.5% in early 2026 as ETH fell below $2,000.
Two other whales pulled a combined 29,079 ETH, about $60 million, off OKX and Binance in early February, <a href="https://www.cryptopolitan.com/og-crypto-whales-accumulating-ethereum/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Cryptopolitan</a> reported.
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Ai Yi ties two $18 ether wallets to ~6,000 ETH sent to exchanges

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