A long-time Bitcoin whale who held tokens for seven years has shocked the crypto market by selling $76 million worth of Bitcoin to open a massive long position on Ethereum. On Wednesday, the whale offloaded 670 BTC, then reinvested the proceeds into four leveraged Ether positions totaling 68,130 ETH, according to blockchain tracker Lookonchain.

The whale originally held over 14,800 Bitcoin, worth more than $1.6 billion, accumulated from exchanges Binance and HTX years ago. The shift comes just a week after Bitcoin hit a record high of $124,128 on August 14, while Ether nearly retested its 2021 peak of $4,878.

The leveraged positions were placed around $4,300 per ETH, with most on 10x leverage and a smaller one on 3x. However, Ether’s price quickly dipped to $4,080, pushing three of the whale’s trades into negative territory and edging them dangerously close to liquidation. At press time, ETH had recovered 2.9% in 24 hours, trading around $4,287.

Other whales reacted differently during the same volatility. Several panic-sold large amounts of ETH—17,972, 13,521 and 3,003 tokens respectively—but institutional buyers were quick to accumulate. Two wallets linked to institutions each scooped up 9,044 ETH worth $38 million. Publicly listed firm BitMine Immersion Technologies also expanded its treasury with 52,475 ETH, boosting its total to 1.52 million tokens valued at $6.6 billion.

Meanwhile, older Bitcoin whales are also moving funds. A dormant Satoshi-era address with 80,201 BTC transferred holdings to Galaxy Digital last month after 14 years of inactivity, while another whale reawakened after six years to move $123 million in Bitcoin.

Analysts say these shifts show a maturing crypto market, with long-time holders cashing out as new institutional players step in to accumulate.