Cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital Ltd. is said to have purchased $400 million worth of Ethereum over the weekend.
What Happened: Chinese journalist Wu Blockchain noted on Twitter that 91,447 tokens of Ether were transferred in two days from the cryptocurrency exchanges FTX, Binance and Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) to the wallet marked by Nansen as that of Three Arrow Capital. Nansen is a blockchain analysis firm.
Three Arrows co-founder Su Zhu responded to the tweet by saying he would still bid it hard on any “panic dump” like over the last weekend. He added that 100,000 tokens of ether “is dust.”
Look I couldn't let you guys jerk off watching the burn without meEth L1 still unusable for newcomers, show it to your grandma if you don't believe me
I'll still bid it hard on any panic dump like this weekend obv
100k eth is dust fwiw, more coming
— Zhu Su (@zhusu) December 7, 2021
Why It Matters: The Ethereum purchase by Three Arrows is significant as it comes just weeks after Zhu said he has abandoned the cryptocurrency despite having supported it in the past. He noted that newcomers to Ethereum cannot afford the chain due to its high transaction fees.
Yes I have abandoned Ethereum despite supporting it in the past.Yes Ethereum has abandoned its users despite supporting them in the past.
The idea of sitting around jerking off watching the burn and concocting purity tests, while zero newcomers can afford the chain, is gross.
— Zhu Su (@zhusu) November 21, 2021
On-chain analytics provider Santiment had also noted last month that Ethereum’s high gas fees carried a high risk of “trader reluctance to circulate tokens.”
#Ethereum is sitting at around $4,300 still, and gas fees are sitting at approximately $50, which does come with a higher risk of trader reluctance to circulate tokens, as a result. Average gas fees are also spiking mildly. https://t.co/YzMCqPP3xE pic.twitter.com/M1XPVgYmBp— Santiment (@santimentfeed) November 1, 2021
Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has outperformed apex cryptocurrency Bitcoin year-to-date following the rise in popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Ethereum’s year-to-date gains are 497.5%, compared to Bitcoin’s gains of 71.8% for the same period. However, the cryptocurrency is currently down 10.0% from its all-time high of $4,859.50 touched last month.
Price Action: Ethereum is down 0.8% during the past 24 hours, trading at $4,365.68 at press time.