Crypto whale bets $24M on Solana, Ethereum: Are altcoins about to moon?

A whale opened a massive $24.34 million exposure, covering a 20x leveraged Solana [SOL] and 25x Ethereum [ETH] positions. 

While this may be read as a bullish conviction on these two altcoins, the trade was not wholly playing as the whale expected. As of writing, the whale had closed out the ETH trade, netting $14.2K. 

Only the SOL long position, worth $16.5M, remained open as of press time. But the trade had an unrealized loss of $616.2K. This followed SOL’s sharp 4% price drop on the 23rd of June. At the time of writing, SOL traded at $68.9, just an inch away from its liquidation price of $67.9.  

What’s next for the altcoin season?

From a chart’s perspective, ETH had hit a key zone that marked local bottoms in late 2023, 2025, and 2026 (white zone). 

In other words, if past patterns repeat, the zone could mark another bottom. It was likely that the whale was betting on the support to hold and ride on the potential rebound. 

However, there was a broader risk-off move on Tuesday, triggered by a tech sell-off. The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed lower by 1.3% on Monday. Ahead of market open on the 23rd of June, Nasdaq Futures were red and down another 2.5%. 

As a tech beta, Bitcoin also faced pressure and briefly dipped below $62K as of writing. The risk-off across the crypto market, including SOL and ETH, followed suit. In fact, CryptoQuant showed more exchange inflows to Gate exchange in the past few hours, especially for ETH. 

This showed investors moved holdings to the exchange with the likely intention to sell. It remains to be seen whether the trader will survive the risk-off move. 

That said, sophisticated and institutional traders were actively hedging against a possible ETH price drop to $1600 and $1500. So, the whale was just right to close the ETH position if the altcoin hits the above levels. 

Glassnode noted that the altcoin signal was currently flashing an “altcoin season.” This is a typical altcoin sector rally that occurs during Bitcoin’s uptrend. 

However, the analytics firm highlighted that the current altcoin season was due to altcoins running out of sellers. 

Despite the whale timing the local bottom for SOL and ETH, the tech sell-off exposed its bet to risk. 

Final Summary

• A whale initially placed a $24.3M bet on the potential of the ETH and SOL rally.
• However, the trader closed the ETH position amid a broader market dip driven by tech sell-off.