I noticed that ETH's price plummeted by 37% in February, and upon digging a little, I discovered that Vitalik Buterin liquidated about 17,000 ETH over the month, which is nearly $43 million. That's no small volume.

According to Arkham data, his wallets went from 241,000 ETH at the beginning of February to 224,000 ETH at the end of the month. He used CoW Protocol to do this through many small transactions rather than a big trade all at once, probably to limit slippage. In January, Buterin had announced that he was reserving this money to fund privacy and security projects, so technically it was planned.

The timing is a bit delicate, though. ETH is currently around $2,230, and with staking rates compressing to 2.8%, large institutional holders like Bitmine Immersion Technologies see their unrealized losses worsening. Over 30% of the ETH supply remains locked in staking, but yields are no longer as attractive as before. It's a tough moment to craft a positive narrative around the token when sales continue and yields decline.