$75 billion Bank Denies Holding MASSIVE Ethereum Position

$75 billion Bank Denies Holding MASSIVE Ethereum Position

The blockchain keeps all the receipts. What I mean by this is blockchains don’t lie.

They hold an immaculate record of what was bought and sold. But blockchain addresses are anonymous. Instead of having a name attached to them, they’re made up of random strings of alphanumeric characters.

There are entire companies whose sole job is to try and figure out the names of the people or companies behind the biggest blockchain addresses. One such firm is the blockchain analytics company Nansen.

Nansen uncovered what it believes to be a whale lurking beneath this Etherscan address: 0x9e927c02c9eadae63f5efb0dd818943c7262fb8e

(Etherscan allows you to see the entire history of the Ethereum blockchain – all the way back to its beginning. If you know a wallet address, you can simply type it into the search box and see its current balance and entire transaction history.)

According to Nansen, the address belongs to DBS, the largest bank in Singapore with a market cap of $75 billion. A scan of the address shows the bank holds 173,753 ETH, worth $647 million.

At this time, we don’t know whether DBS is holding the Ethereum for itself or on behalf of clients. When contacted the bank stonewalled. The bank has denied that it “has this position on its books.”

What we do know is that DBS has been an early adopter of digital assets. Last year, DBS added support for China's central bank digital currency (CBDC), the e-yuan.

And in 2020, when many banks were still blocking crypto transactions, it launched the DBS Digital Exchange… which allows trading in bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Polkadot, Cardano and Ripple.

When the exchange proved popular with its clients, the bank added a custody service as well. And that’s what this $647 million in Ethereum is probably for.

But we don’t know for sure. It would represent a remarkable shift in global banking if the position belonged to the bank itself.

Here’s my speculation: The bank has no reason to stonewall unless it’s building a position for itself. It already facilitates ETH trading… So, admitting to holding ETH for clients requires no secrecy.

But if it is a buyer for its own account, this marks the beginning of what could be a much broader trend of bank participation in the digital asset ecosystem. And that, my friends, is wildly bullish for prices.

Ether’s Turn to Run

I’ve been bullish on Ethereum for years.

Last month, I wrote a Digital Asset Daily essay titled “Why Now Is a Great Time to Buy Ethereum.”

At the time, investor sentiment behind Ethereum was low. The market’s odds that the federal regulators would be quick to approve an Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) had shifted from positive to negative.

I argued that this bearish sentiment was a perfect short-term trade setup for ETH, which at the time was trading around $2,900. Any good news would create a pop in the price, I argued.

And that’s exactly what happened…