Last week, several 2014 ICO participants activated their wallets and sent coins to trading platforms for a total amount of approximately $45 million, according to analytics lookonchain and Onchain Lens.

An #Ethereum ICO participant "0x61b9" just transferred all 334.7 $ETH($1.48M) out today after 10+ years of dormancy.

He invested only $104 in the ICO and received 334.7 $ETH — now worth $1.48M, a 14,269x return!https://t.co/JJEGgmYmvz pic.twitter.com/5sUF8a0DkH
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 16, 2025

August 16 address 0x61B9 moved for the first time in nine years 334.7 ETH (~$1.5 million) for a new wallet. These coins were purchased back in 2014 at $104, making the return on investments stunning — more than 14 thousand times.

The #Ethereum ICO participant has further sent 4,460 $ETH, worth $19.85M, into #Kraken.

In total, the participant has deposited 9,803 $ETH, worth $43.88M, in the past 7 days.

Address: 0x815C53bF36a3BC8B066715Da459B365e6ce6c3eD

Data @nansen_ai https://t.co/7gQhYEx7ZP pic.twitter.com/s0ym1HKwmz
— Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) August 18, 2025

Two days later, another early investor transferred to the exchange Kraken 4460 ETH (~$19M). During the week, this address totally moved about 9800 ETH (~$43.9 million) to trading platforms.

According to the service Arkham, at the time of publication on the wallet of the second investor, there was only 197 ETH (~$843,900).

What is behind the mass transfers

According to observations cryptoquant, since mid-August, the activity of ETH transfer to exchanges has increased markedly. daily volumes exceeded several times 2 million ETHreaching a peak 2.6 million ETH. For comparison, in July such flows were rare – not higher 1.5 million ETH per day.

analysts, including researcher under the alias XWIN RESEAR JAPAN, link the growth of movements with several factors: fixing profits from early investors, preparing for possible volatility against the background of macroeconomic events or changes within the Ethereum ecosystem, as well as active trading in large whales that use exchanges to rebalancing your portfolios.