About 169,770 ETH, worth roughly $407m at a reference price of $2,400, left centralised exchanges on a net basis in a single day, according to Santiment on 23 October.
It was the largest daily withdrawal for more than four months. The previous bigger movement came on 5 June, when about 223,800 ETH was removed from exchanges near what Santiment described as a local buying opportunity. That figure was approximately 32% higher than October’s total.
Exchange balances are commonly used as an indication of the amount of cryptocurrency immediately available for sale on centralised platforms. A significant net withdrawal can reduce that supply, although the coins may instead have been moved into self-custody, staking or institutional custody. The data does not identify the owners or explain their reasons.
The movement came as US spot Ethereum ETFs recorded more than $1bn in net outflows between 1 October and 22 October, according to daily figures from Farside Investors. Fourteen of the 16 sessions were negative.
The table showed a preliminary $4m inflow for 23 October, although one fund’s figure was still unavailable. The other exceptions were a $25m inflow on 13 October and a $15m inflow on 21 October. That latter gain was followed by a $111m outflow the next day.
The two datasets measure different activity: Santiment monitors coins moving between tracked exchange addresses and other destinations, while Farside records net money entering and leaving regulated funds.
Altcoin performance and wider market
Alpha Finance’s 23 October tracker showed that 60% of eligible major altcoins had outperformed Bitcoin over the previous 90 days, while only 27% had done so over seven days. Its definition of an altcoin season requires at least 75% to outperform Bitcoin over 90 days, meaning the 60% reading remains below that threshold.
A recovery led specifically by ETH could therefore happen alongside weakness among smaller tokens. Movements in the ETH/BTC pair and the seven-day performance measure would help distinguish that from a broader rotation into altcoins.
In a post on 17 October, trader 0xsweep said whales were “building ETH longs like there’s no tomorrow.”
The wider market remained affected by technology-led risk aversion. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.6% to 26,009 on 22 October, its sharpest fall since June, amid concerns over artificial intelligence spending. The Dow was broadly unchanged and the Russell 2000 edged higher.
The Federal Reserve raised its target range to 3.75% to 4% in September and is due to meet on 27 and 28 October. Treasury yields fell sharply on 22 October as investors sought safety, reflecting both inflation concerns and demand for safer assets.
Santiment identifies $2,500 as a level that would strengthen the rebound case and about $2,330 as one that would weaken it. From $2,400, those levels represent gains of 4.2% and a fall of 2.9% respectively.
Ethereum was down 1.59% over the previous 24 hours and ranked second by market capitalisation.
