Ethereum Purchases by Whales Unnoticed During Price Plateau (Nansen)

Throughout late 2024 and into 2025, significant ETH holders have been stockpiling, even as retail balances decrease, according to data provided by Nansen.

Despite Ethereum's (ETH) price drop of over 44% this year, currently trading around $1,900, certain large investors are continuing to expand their holdings, as indicated by on-chain data from Nansen shared with crypto.news.

While smaller ETH holders have been lowering their balances, whales possessing between 10,000 and 100,000 ETH have amplified their holdings by more than 12% in early 2025.

"The 10k-100k segment observed over a 12% growth in 2025 alone on their total ETH balances, whereas the 1k-10k segment witnessed a 3% increase in their holdings YTD."

Nansen

Meanwhile, Ethereum's network activity seems to have stagnated, with median gas prices allegedly plummeting nearly 50 times since early 2024, while some of the activity appears to have transitioned to Solana (SOL) and layer-2 networks, the report proposes.

Ethereum also confronts increasing competition, with Nansen stating that the network is "competing on all fronts and risks being a 'jack of all trades but master of none'" when juxtaposed with BTC, SOL, and TIA.

Despite some whales' accumulation, the overall trend remains ambiguous as ETH leaves "much to be desired across many of the onchain metrics," Nansen points out, adding that the asset has "severe underperformance on both the way up and the way down."

For ETH to reverse its extended downtrend against BTC, "significant changes would need to occur," experts at Nansen assert, although it remains uncertain whether any immediate catalyst could alter market sentiment.