During the recent crash that rocked the entire crypto market, ETH dumped more than 33%, with huge sales coming from Jump Crypto.
Jump Crypto, the cryptocurrency arm of Jump Trading, has been on an extended selling spree, offloading over 83,000 ether (ETH) in the past 12 days. The trend continued into this week, as the company unstaked over $400 million worth of ETH and transferred it to exchange accounts for further selling. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is reportedly investigating these activities, adding to the apprehension about the future of Ethereum’s price.
Jump Crypto Unstakes Over 120,000 ETH
According to data from onchain analysis platform Arkham Intelligence, Jump Crypto has been significantly active with its ETH holdings within the past few days. Since July 24, the company has sold over 83,000 wstETH worth $377 million.
Following the approval of Spot Ethereum Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF), ETH has been on the downside as the ETFs have recorded massive outflows. But things became gloomy for ether on Monday as the entire crypto market took a nosedive with major assets losing significant percent of their values. ETH went as low as $2,100 for the first time since Feburary 2024.
The crashed coincided with Jump Crypto unstaking and selling 120,695 wstETH, valued at $290 million. The tokens were unstaked at the Ethereum redeem address and moved to Binance, Coinbase, Bybit, and other centralized exchange addresses.
Lookonchain noted that the recently unstaked wstETH was recovered from a year-old Wormhole exploit. The exploiter moved the stolen tokens through various dApps on the Ethereum network, but Jump Crypto and Oasis secured the stolen funds and transferred them to a new wallet.
Jump Crypto Under Probe
Jump Crypto is currently under the radar of US regulators. According to recent reports, the CFTC is examining the firm operations in the crypto space. After the investigation started, Kanav Kariya stepped down as the company’s President. However, the probe has not caught any evidence of wrongdoing by the crypto trading firm, and the decision to charge the company is still unknown.
Despite the significant reduction in its ETH portfolio, Jump Crypto still holds over 37,600 ETH, valued at around $100 million at current prices.
The massive ETH sales from Jump Crypto attracted the attention of many investors, who think they are significantly affecting the asset’s price. Some speculators, including BitMEX’s founder Arthur Hayes, have associated it with the recent dip in the ETH price.
Speaking on the matter, analysts from digital assets firm QCP Group said:
“The immediate trigger in crypto seems to have been aggressive selling from Jump Trading and Paradigm VC. The move was probably exacerbated by market makers scrambling to cut short gamma as front-end ETH volumes spiked more than 30% to 120%.”
