An early Ethereum investor is making waves in the crypto market. They've deposited 48,500 ETH to an exchange over the past month. This comes as Ether's market cap took an $80 billion hit.

The whale bought 1 million ETH at $0.31 during the ICO. That was 3,300 days ago. Now, they're cashing out at an average of $3,176 per ETH. Talk about a windfall.

The ROI? A mind-boggling 1,024,416%. Not too shabby for a nine-year wait.

The whale's been busy. They've made 17 transactions to OKX in the past month. The deposits started small but ramped up. The last three were 5,000 ETH each.

There's still 15,600 ETH left in the whale's wallet. If they keep selling, we could see another $41 million hit the market soon.

But it's not just this whale making moves. Block Tower Capital sold 9,232 ETH worth about $25 million. They used FalconX, Cumberland, Wintermute, and B2C2Group to do it.

Interestingly, despite these big sales, ETH is actually leaving exchanges overall. CryptoQuant data shows exchange reserves dropped from 17.1 million to 16.8 million in August.

The launch of the spot Ethereum ETF hasn't helped prices either. Net inflows are still negative, thanks to outflows from Grayscale's ETHE.

Ether's price is having a rough Q3. It's currently sitting at $2,649.

So what's next for ETH? With whales cashing out and ETFs not providing the expected boost, it's anyone's guess. But one thing's for sure - the crypto world is never dull.