Amber Group, a large platform for digital wealth management, continued its trend of liquidating Ethereum (ETH). Recently, Amber Group added another large-scale transaction to Binance.
Amber Group deposited another 8K Ethereum (ETH) to Binance, further diminishing its holdings. The latest ETH transaction arrives after a series of inflows of stablecoins, especially USDT and USDC. In total, Amber Group holds more than $58M in crypto assets.
Amber moves $20.35 in ETH, $10M left in stablecoins
In the past month, Amber Group deposited a total of 57K ETH to centralized exchanges, adding to the price pressure.
5 minutes ago, #Amber deposited 8k $ETH (~$20.35M) to #Binance.
Within a month, he deposited totally 57k $ETH (~$156.19M) into #Binance.
Address:https://t.co/OVMQ7XQ4yu pic.twitter.com/GEm29LSp3z
— The Data Nerd (@OnchainDataNerd) August 29, 2024
After the shift, Amber Group now holds more than $10M in stablecoins, but just $9.48M in ETH. The latest transaction follows a series of sales from large-scale wallets, as ETH enters a period of bearish attitudes and a loss of enthusiasm.
The most recent Amber deposit to Binance follows selling from big funds, including Wintermute. Previously, Jump Crypto also unwound its ETH positions, expanding one of the biggest market crashes for 2024. Cumberland was also one of the funds to move ETH back to Kraken and Binance. Both Cumberland and Amber Group deposited around 12.8K ETH as of August 26, as part of their series of divestments.
ETH buying offsets some of the selling, as ETF returned to modest inflows. However, previous whales and holders of ETH are moving into stablecoin positions as a more intuitive, less volatile tool. The latest selling trend expanded deposits to spot markets, liquidating around 30K ETH in the past 24 hours.
At the same time, Amber Group has not abandoned crypto. The fund still leads seed rounds for on-chain startups, with the most recent raising of $3.5M for Echelon.
Amber Group remains active DEX trader
Amber Group is a survivor of the earlier crypto bull market, with activity similar to Nexo and other earlier investment funds. While now Amber Group seems to deal mainly with highly liquid ETH and stablecoins, its related wallets show another picture.
The group is still a mid-range liquidity provider on Uniswap V3, reveals one of its known wallet. Two more wallets are used as intermediary steps to Binance deposits, showing high-level activity. The company also holds a dedicated wallet for high-activity DEX trading. Other large wallets show Amber group also holds previously hold tokens like YGG.
Overall, Amber Group relies heavily on stablecoins, while still supporting several large tokens from the previous bull market. Amber Group participated in 61 investment rounds, leading 11 of them. In August, Amber Group participated in a total of three rounds, including Echelon, Salt Layer and Essential.
The company also has numerous counterparties, including wallets tagged as “Tornado Cash Withdrawer”.
Altcoins may rally even without ETH
During the 2024 bull market, one of the main narratives was that ETH could trigger an altcoin rally. In the past, ETH drove other tokens as the basis for multiple pairs. In 2024, however, even ERC-20 projects have different sources of liquidity, and only use ETH as a utility token for gas fees.
The ETH market cap dominance is now down to 14.5%, while blue chip altcoins and smaller tokens take 28% of the market. Those assets, especially Solana (SOL) and BNB, can rally independently of ETH.
Some altcoins may also benefit from ETH liquidations, freeing up funds for other purchases. In the case of Amber Group, one of the big holdings is still Uniswap (UNI), tied to the performance of one of the biggest DEX.
The shift away from ETH happens just a few weeks after raising expectations for an easy hike above $4,000. ETH was also expected to expand above $6,000 and even realistically to the $10,000 range.
ETH prices have achieved significant recoveries but later sank back to retest support levels. Previously, ETH was considered more robust than Bitcoin (BTC). However, the BTC selling pressure abated after liquidating several big wallets. ETH reserves have grown in value, as DAO, ICO teams, and other entities have raised ETH at a lower price and may have incentives to lock in gains.
