Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has multiple public wallets that carry a significant amount of ETH and these wallets are religiously tracked by on-chain sleuths. This is why whenever the founder makes a withdrawal, the destination of the ETH being sent is closely followed and recent reports reveal that Buterin has been sending significant amounts of ETH out to different wallets.

Two Vitalik Buterin Transactions Spark Speculations

In the early hours of Monday, the on-chain data tracking platform PeckShieldAlert took to X (formerly Twitter) to share some interesting movements that have been taking place in wallets said to belong to Buterin. This time around, the tracker flagged a single transaction carrying 3,000 ETH.

The 3,000 ETH, worth roughly $4.95 million at the time of the transfer was sent out from the well-known Vitalik.eth wallet to another wallet identified publicly as Vb2. This brought the latter’s balance to 3,017 ETH, worth a little over $4.95 million.

#PeckShieldAlert vitalik.eth labeled-address has transferred 3K $ETH (~$4.95M) to Vb 2 labeled-address pic.twitter.com/f8ETU42TrD

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 28, 2023

The speculations of whether the Ethereum founder is offloading some of his stash come in relation to an earlier transaction made by him. The transaction which was also reported by PeckShield alert showed that Buterin had sent 600 ETH worth around $1 million at the time to the Coinbase crypto exchange.

#PeckShieldAlert vitalik.eth labeled-address has transferred 3K $ETH (~$4.95M) to Vb 2 labeled-address pic.twitter.com/f8ETU42TrD

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 28, 2023

For many, however, this transaction was insignificant in the grand scheme of things and did not lead to a cause for alarm. The most recent transaction also follows in the same vein since it looks like the billionaire founder is just redistributing his assets to other wallets.

ETH price struggles coming out of the weekend | Source: ETHUSD on Tradingview.com

Is This Why ETH’s Price Is Struggling?

So far, there is no indication that Buterin’s wallet movements have anything to do with the ETH price decline. As already mentioned above, the ETH liquidity is too deep for a $1 million sell to trigger such a decline, which would suggest something else is behind the coin’s struggles.

The most obvious factor is that the broader crypto market has been taking a hit and ETH has not been left out. Bitcoin fell from $28,000 to below $26,000, taking the majority of the market down with it. As a result, investor sentiment swung far into the negative which is preventing new money from coming into the market.

With the bear market waxing strong, there could be more decline to come for the digital asset until investor sentiment improves and the market starts to recover once more. For now, ETH is still ranging above $1,640 as bears and bulls are locked in a tug-of-war for control.