A crypto whale with a large amount of Ether (ETH) sold $41 million worth of the cryptocurrency a few days before the market plummeted, avoiding a $5 million loss.

Lookonchain, a blockchain analysis tool that follows and distributes what it views to be smart trades, flagged the transaction. The crypto whale placed 22,341 ETH on the Binance platform and withdrew about $41 million in Tether (USDT) on August 18th.

While the crypto whale lost approximately $1.7 million in value, the trader avoided further potential losses that could have exceeded more than $5 million if market prices had collapsed.

On August 18, the market capitalization of cryptocurrency fell by 6% to $1.1 trillion; the lowest level in at least two months.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell from roughly $1,820 per token on August 17 to around $1,597 the next day.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC), which accounts for over half of the total crypto market, fell from around $28,400 to $25,649 in the same time frame before recovering to around $26,000 in a matter of hours.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/ether-whale-dumps-41m-days-before-the-market-crashed

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/