On-chain data shows that Ethereum investors who have held for more than three years have increased their selling to levels not seen since 2021.
Experienced Ethereum holders are expanding distribution
As on-chain analytics firm Glassnode explains in a new post on X, Ethereum holders between 3 and 10 years old have significantly increased their spending recently. These investors belong to a broader group known as the long-term holders (LTH) cohort, which has a holding period cutoff of 155 days.
Statistically, the longer an investor holds a coin, the less likely they are to sell it at any time. Therefore, LTH as a whole can be considered a diamond hand.
Since 3-10 year old ETH investors are old even by LTH standards, one might assume that they include the most robust HODLers. Given the size of this group, investor action might be worth paying attention to. That’s because selling from them can be a sign that market conditions are forcing even the most seasoned investors to retreat.
One way to track group behavior is to use age-specific spending indicators. It tracks the transactions that investors of different age groups are making on the blockchain. Below is a graph of an indicator shared by Glassnode that shows the trend of Ethereum’s 90-day moving average (MA) over the past few years.
The value of the metric appears to have shot up in recent months | Source: Glassnode on X
As shown in the graph, spending by age has increased sharply since late August for investors in the 3-10 year holding period range. Currently, the 90-day moving average is above 45,000 ETH, which means that market veterans are selling $139 million worth of tokens every day.
“This marks the highest level of spending by experienced investors since February 2021,” the analytics firm noted. In addition to February’s sharp decline, this group also participated in distribution at roughly the same level as the bull market top in the second half of the year.
The latest wave of selling has arrived and Ethereum is showing bearish momentum. It remains to be seen whether this price decline will lead to another bear market like in the second half of 2021, or if the bull market will regain footing as it did in February 2021.
The LTH sell-off is not the only bearish factor that ETH has had to deal with recently. The Ethereum spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) has witnessed significant outflows over the past month, as shown in a chart shared by CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn.
The trend in the spot ETF netflows for Ethereum and Bitcoin | Source: @JA_Maartun on X
From the graph above, it is clear that the Ethereum Spot ETF’s 30-day net outflows are negative at $1.21 billion, while Bitcoin’s net outflows are even worse at $2.8 billion.
ETH price
As of this writing, Ethereum is trading around $3,100, down more than 4% in the past week.
Looks like the price of the coin has plunged during the past day | Source: ETHUSDT on TradingView
Featured images from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, CryptoQuant.com, charts from TradingView.com
