One of the many benefits that the blockchain brings is the increased level of transparency. Every transaction that takes place is permanently stored on the blockchain and is visible to everyone. Transactions of enormous size or originating from certain interesting wallets therefore regularly appear in the crypto news. This time, a transaction has been spotted on the Ethereum (ETH) network from a key player in the early days of the popular smart contract network.
Huge pile of ETH to Kraken
The well-known Twitter account Wu Blockchain tweeted yesterday that Jeffrey Wilcke, a co-founder of Ethereum, had sent a total of 22,000 ETH to Kraken, a popular American crypto exchange. This huge mountain of ether carries a value of just under $40 million at the current ETH price.
Ethereum co-founder Jeffrey Wilcke transferred 22,000 ETH ($41.13M) to the Kraken exchange. The last time Jeffrey Wilcke’s address transferred ETH out was 29 months ago (2021/01/06) when he transferred 15,000 ETH into Kraken. At present, the Jeffrey Wilcke address still holds…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 5, 2023
In addition, it was stated that January 6, 2021, 29 months ago, was the last time Wilcke had made a transaction on the network. At the time, he sent 15,000 ETH to Kraken. Wilcke’s address currently still consists of more than 150,000 ETH, worth $271 million.
Wilcke also chose to first send a test transaction of 0.001 ETH before transferring the entire stack to the American crypto exchange.
However, the motive behind the massive transaction is unknown at the time of writing. Despite this, it is a fact that investors generally send their crypto to an exchange to sell it.
Ethereum transaction costs at all-time low
Yesterday you could also read in the Ethereum news that the transaction costs on the popular layer-1 blockchain is currently at its lowest point in two months. During the previous hype about meme coins, the average transaction costs shot up to over $ 20, but now you pay about $ 7.50 per transaction.
While some may still think twice before making a transaction on the network, the current situation is at least a lot better than it was a while back.
Layer-2 solutions such as Polygon (MATIC), Arbitrum (ARB) and Optimism (OP) have come to life as a solution to this problem. These scaling solutions ensure that the Ethereum network is less loaded and as a result more scalable.