An address containing pre-mined Ethereum valued at $116 million made a significant move, transferring its entire stash of 61,216 Ether (ETH) currently priced at $1,908 per token, to an address on the Kraken crypto exchange. This wallet had remained dormant for a period of eight years.
The pre-mined Ether was accumulated by early team members and co-founders during a sale event conducted by the Ethereum ecosystem back in June 2014. This event allowed them to acquire tokens when the network was unable to generate them independently.
At the time of the pre-mining, Ether was trading at $300–$400, which valued the wallet at approximately $20 million. However, over the course of eight years, the value of these tokens has surged, reaching more than $116 million at the current market rates.
On July 18 at 7:30 pm Eastern Time, Etherscan data verified the transfer of the pre-mined 61,216 ETH to a Kraken wallet address. Interestingly, the transaction fee for sending the $116 million worth of Ether was surprisingly minuscule, only amounting to $1.5. The gas price used in the transaction was 25.475673161 gwei, as depicted in the accompanying screenshot.
While the owner of the wallet containing 61,216 ETH remains anonymous, the recent transaction emphasizes the significance of the hodling investment strategy, which focuses on long-term crypto token accumulation. The cautious approach taken by the owner to avoid any loss of funds due to human error is evident in the screenshot, where a test transaction of 0.05 ETH was sent to the Kraken address before executing the whale transaction.
On July 18, at the Ethereum Community Conference event in Paris, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin discussed the challenges involved in implementing a new feature on the blockchain known as account abstraction extensions, also referred to as “paymasters.” These extensions could potentially allow users to pay their fees with the coins they are transferring.
Although account abstraction offers several benefits to users, Buterin acknowledged that developers must address certain challenges. These include the need for an Ethereum Improvement Proposal to upgrade current externally-owned accounts (normal user accounts) into smart contracts, as well as ensuring the protocol functions effectively in layer-2 solutions.