Bitcoin Forum

At the peak of the market during the massive bull run of 2017, the Ethereum Foundation liquidated 70,000 ETH. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin convinced the foundation to sell at that time.

The price of ETH peaked at $1,400 during January of 2018, which would have netted approximately $100 million from the sale. Buterin also disclosed a personal sale of 30,000 ETH at the same time.

Full news here (https://beincrypto.com/ethereum-foundation-sold-100-million-eth-at-peak-price/?utm_campaign=amba&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bitcointalk&utm_content=jc)

Holy smokes! Now this is why their projects can keep up for a very long while.

To me, it was a wise decision for them to liquidate their ETH when it reaches its all-time high back then. Even the “extraordinary terrestrial” himself, Vitalik Buterin, sold his personal 30,000 ETH.

I just wish it was 2017 all over again, when we could have sold some ETH and other tokens during the big bull run. However, I honestly think that it will not repeat ever again because the market has matured already.

Good for them. Well done!

Yes, I think so too. Times in 2017 will be very difficult to achieve now but that does not mean impossible either. And I think ATH will happen if bitcoin touches the new ATH price first.
Many people assume that in 2020 this will happen. But what is clear is that the year of crypto can be carried out if the king holds a massive party, which in the sense of bitcoin touches prices above $ 20k.

You are talking about the past but you are doubting the future of crypto currencies, I completely disagree with your statement that it will not repeat ever again. Market is like up and down while it continue to dominate it's top price in every peak of the market therefore in the coming peak of the market there is a big chance that we can see an increase of price that are more than compare to the peak price of 2017-2018.

The Eth founder and it's team have their own reasons why they decided to sell those amounts of holding that they have and there is a big chance that they will buy it back once the market will start to move upward again. 

Saying that market of 2017 will not repeat itself every again sounds like a big joke, if you following market trends very well you will notice that some altcoins still follows bitcoin movement very well, are you saying bitcoin can't get to 20k ever again? You are fooling yourself

Some may think of it as scam or a cheat but can you blame them? They have the rights to sell what they created in spite of having a fud on their project. Of course these people also need to earn, there is a thing called give and take. They give their efforts building a success for their platform and taking back some of its accomplishment by monetizing some or should I say? Little of it is not a sin.

That is why I do see all these developers as selfish people. Only Satoshi has proven to be selfless. I think if they are still holding those quantities ethereum will have be in the state it is now. With this information I believe that ethereum might never get to $1450 ever again.

That's one of the reasons of that eth will never recover again.

Now you know everytime it makes a moon shot, the Eth foundation will dump on you poor devils.

Satoshi never did something like this and hardcore hodling his 1m coins while Vitalik the scammer is playing pump and dump with the investors money.

This is not companies based investment that grows linearly, this is blockchain and crypto technology it grows in J curves and every year things keeps getting better, if you want to talk about the past then judge base on this December market price with past Decembers

It's much better to see that and as far as I know when vitalik sold his ethereum and it doesn't give a he impact like what already done by garbage developer just like matic. Some people will argue if ethereum has a very big liquidity compared with matic but the fact that we have so many ways to sell them slowly that make sure the market will not be affected by that.
vitalik is better than jed.
When you are seeing jed and how much billions that already liquidated to the market since XRP was created and you will get a big surprise.

Are you saying because vitalik sold his holding at ATH while he expected everyone of you to do the same is a wrong move? I am sure he bought back again when price is now low, did you do the same? ETH CEO is a very capable guy, if money means that much to him he have enough excuses to exit scam

since you are tge developer selling your own coins is sign that it is already at its peak price and will attract other investors ot also to sell thier holdings . This is why the price continue to decrease when vuterin thier holdings.

That was a brilliant move on their part, they have sold it at the right time, but the investors who bought it are now at a loss on how they can sell it, they need to keep up their works for another round of all-time high, I don't believe that there's not going to be a repeat, of course, there's going to be a repeat, this is Ethereum and it's the number two coin in the market.

After they sell at a good price, this will certainly benefit the owner of Ethereum (Vitalik Buterin).
And of course there are many who lose too after many who bought at the price of $ 1,400 at the goldfish, but this is hard to happen like this may take a few more years at this rate, even though Ethereum is the number coin on the market but it cannot benefit the holder if conditions market like this.

It's their right to sell it at the highest price, because their eyes are very good at seeing the future.
Let the past pass, this is purely the freedom of people so we cannot blame them.
Make this a motivation so that we can be like them without having to bring down anyone.

In fact, when returning to a higher peak, you may not have sold as planned now. because greed always dominates reason. only sharks know what they have to do because they understand the market. So in order not to get the sharks to guide us, we need to be disciplined in dealing. learn a lot from those who came first and set up a trading plan and never do anything against what we have set out. That is the best way for us to get maximum profits and never make a loss.

I also think it was the right decision, and why to not get some money from the work they done. Maybe we can have again a year like 2017 on 2020 and we will have what to sell and can get some good profit if we will have Eth at that time.

Yes it is a wrong move. It is the wrongest move you can ever imagine.

Why do you think there are "holders of the last resort" people in bitcoin? Do you know what that even means? It means these people are ready to go down with the ship. The #1 holder of the last resort is satoshi nakamoto with his 1m stash and there are hundreds of more, Trace Mayer (https://www.tracemayer.net/) is one of them also who came up with the name.

Apparently Vitalik isn't. The founders of eth aren't hodlers neither. They are promoting that shitcoin only to make quick bucks.

That's the main difference between eth and bitcoin. Eth has no real believers.

In this case, the Ethereum platform has helped and created great projects on the platform. Average of the top 100 coins also come from the Ethereum platform, even Binance, EOS, Tron and others have also felt the benefits of this platform. If we see from the development funds or spending funds of a project, then it is definitely from the ICO, IEO, STO is much bigger, even EOS has a much larger fund than this case, whether the reason it makes EOS better? I do not think so.

So do not just look at a project only in terms of development funds or spending funds, but also see the extent of the benefits and contributions that have been made.

It is very difficult to bounce back ETH price to $1400 again soon but it can be in longer future. Obviously, it is a wise disicion for the co-founder Vitalik Buterin that their team netted approximately $100 M from ETH sale but if they hold then, it would be failure project even today.

Agree, almost all communities expect this to happen and moreover for altcoin holders, they certainly hope that the bullrun will occur so that prices follow bitcoin. But if that doesn't happen in 2020 then we have to be more patient waiting for the right moment

The decision was good if it will help the project to last for long term.
ETH suffered but if they have a lot of funds as contingency to develop the future of the project, then we should not worry on its future.

I just know about this news and I can say that Vitalik was a real genius.

I think it's normal for the developer team to sell tokens when prices are high because the developer team needs funds for product development. But the amount of $ 100 million in my opinion is too big to develop a product but something like this has happened to Litecoin

Everyone wants to live in that period for life mate, but it cant be like that all the time. We may see another bull run next year and we may see a new all time high of many altcoins.

I feel it is time to get over the past instead of thinking through it over and over again. We can actually face the future and make the best of it. Inhave no doubt that we can still have a repeat of 2017 in the near future.

Let us forget about all time highs for Ethereum. The price could be half of it but I also think that reaching a new all time high is going to be a difficult wish to see. We already have an idea that if ATH comes again, they are prepared for it.

Yes, they are prepared to sell and that is why so do we.

Indeed, anyone can make any decision about the funds in their wallet. But, the amount is too much, the amount sold by the team and Vitalik makes 140 million from the price of 1400$. I hope the price drop was not caused by them. Because they cannot be foolish enough to sell that amount in exchange.

He is very smart for doing that. Who in their right mind would buy something when they are at the peak price? Sheeples. In my opinion, it will be close to impossible to reach all-time high of ETH again because there's just not enough hype for dumb people to invest in cryptocurrency scams again.

I feel this is a sinful act of the team, because when bitcoin is lowering Dominance and the alts are the speculators' remaining hope. but Vitalik and the team created a wave of downtrend and other alts are also ready to sell off. So the reason is that the CEOs of the projects sell it at a high price and drive the market down. and the low price of ETH is also due to the above reason, Vitalik is making people feel disappointed about him.

Pertaining to the big bullrun you said mate, would there be another bullrun which was more powerful compared from 2017? Well, I must think so now since we've been through twice a year facing such drowned market. Only miracle I think will make those possibilities become a reality so far.

This news should somehow give relief to the holders, they themselves even know that the market was overprice that time and they took the advantage to sell.
People will not dump anymore, and even if they do, they have enough funds to stop the bleeding, what a smart move. .

Kudos to the team for making the price decision protecting the interest and the future of the investors, this coin is worth to invest at this point.

Bitcoin isn't a good comparison on the coins that have direct leadership. And bitcoin can be dumped to you by whales in a similar way, the dumpers are just pseudonymous and those dumpers are probably not contributing to bitcoin code base afterwards.

Agree with you that the current market has matured. And investors are also much more experienced than 2017. That's why I think that the price of ETH and the whole market will be hard to reach ATH like 2017 again. Once prices rise a little, many people are willing to flock to leave this market, I also wish that if 2017 could come back again, I would sell everything and not hold anything ... but it was a dream that would never come true.

History will repeat again but of course in different time and model. Eth still keep running with their way to increase performance and trust, pump and down is relative buy how they can handle is more important. Time by time Eth will grow up with their own hand we only need support it by use it as alternative income and payment, keep do transaction with eth and stay optimist.

Like a thought. the developer or team is the main character, so there is certainly no loss and we only support one because the project is considered to have the potential to be involved in it. also the team is more important to know how long the project being managed will last. but at least for this problem, Ethereum 2.0 will improve price and stability. so that investors will improve, although a little disappointed.

Why not Vitalik buy back ethereum to make price back above $1,400 again, he got much profit during selling ethereum with higher price on 2017 and try to make their coin have higher price again, why many owner never take care with their coins after dump with lower price and just keep on their mind with profit without care how with their coin investor member.

That just means he knows what he is really doing.
He did said that we might never see that price again.
I have the same hopes as you.
But time could never be brought down. Once happened we cannot take it back.
Same thing with the ATH of bitcoin. I really thought the pump is not over but yet it did blow like a bubble in just a month.

For a smart person like Vitalik Buterin, it is not a surprised to know that they have sold a lot of ethereum at the peak of the bull run of ethereum because they know that the bull run is driven by the emotions and hype and they don't want to join the majority and they already knew that it is best to secure their profit. Even though they have sold a lot of ethereum back then, it doesn't lessen my enthusiasm in ethereum and I still believe in them for long term.

Charles Lee also sold all his litecoins at that time too, at the all-time high.

In one sense it's positive - it releases coins into the market so that they're not all concentrated in the hands of the founders.

But in another sense it's a sign the developers are letting go and cashing out. Imagine the effect if all the original coins satoshi mined for bitcoin were suddenly released and sold. The price would tank (and the price of eth and litecoin tanked so much precisely because so many coins were sold by the founders).

positive thinking they sell for project development, so no problem about it, honestly I have thought like this since 2014 - 2015, that I will not see bitcoin touching more than $ 1000, even people say the bitcoin bubble has broken and will not touch above $ 1,000 again, but that was history said another, 2017 the price of bitcoin touched another 20x from the highest price of 2013, now many people say the difficulty of the price of bitcoin or other ethereum is difficult to rise to high prices again like 2017 later, but I will bet it that everyone will see it soon

I don't think it was wrong as the news stated that it was sold during the All time high between 2017-2018 respectively 70 thousand ethereum is just a small portion of its  total holdings and its just dwarf with some whales selling millions of Eth holdings during the ATH season. cryptocurrency is associated with risk and we should all know that in the very beginning, Me personally i'm also losing some of my money during 2018-2019 crypto winter but i don't blaming anyone because these is my personal decision to hold a particular coin/token without knowing the outcome for me its a missed calculation in my side. 

if you look at etherum liquidity in the market, we don't need to hesitate anymore. yes, I am among those who believe in the events of 2017 and early 2018 will be repeated again. all we need to do is buy it now and save it, who knows if the etherum foundation will liquidate again even reaching 100 million, and prices can pump up to $ 10,000. we can only wait for what happens and think positive.

Even the CEO of Litecoin had intended to abandon the project after selling all of the LTC he held. I hope ETH will not be the same as LTC, I still have positive faith in ETH in the future. Its price will certainly be pumped again and our job is to continue buying if possible and holding. ETH is still active and growing very well, there are many facilities to help ETH rise in the upcoming bull market

Ethereum pump should be the top when we are doing analysis that ethereum price is very low. This could be good if this Ethereum price is the lowest. Even though 100 millions worth of Ethereum isn't very low. For a project liquidity pool is very important.

I think the market will always be like this, up and down prices are normal. And I think eth owners have prepared several strategies to deal with markets like this. Of course we all expect good prices for all coins, not just a few coins, so we will have the option to make transactions in cryptocurrency. And maybe eth can touch that big number.

It was a great decision for them, without any doubt. But I can hardly imagine that the crypto market got advantages from it. After such a solid amount of ETH was sold, the market crashed and ETH fell to 80 bucks per coin.

Vitalik is a smart man. Even with that period of sales, it can have a say in this market for many years. Of course, these are sales advertisements that are somehow declared. But there is another situation. Lee, founder of Ltc, made a similar statement. It's the end of the bull right in front of us!

Idiom on the project back with the ethereum smart contract platform or in wide range of usage if you look at on 2017 but now there is no any support from me users as well as from the investor side.
So if you have fund in ethereum please look for the some decent low level bump and make money out of it.

Firstly, this amount was sold in January 2018 and this did not seem to had an effect on the price being $80 after 1 year. Also, I do not think he used exchanges to sell ETH, because it was enough to influence the price.


I do not think it will have the same result. IIRC, while Lee sold all his LTCs, Buterin only sold some. And Buterin made a statement about it almost two years later.

You have an excellent point. Over 90 percent of these cryptos except bitcoin are profit oriented and one shouldn't relax when he's invested in them because the developers might wake up a faithful morning and decide to sell off and that's the end. I am so happy for Vitalik for selling at the top, I am sure some people bought at the top too and lost tremendous money. They will learn

I am not surprised that some are still expecting and eagerly awaiting the bull to occur again. Despite all the green lights shun, it is still not appearing like it will come. Those who got the logic behind it and the several warnings gilded to it, but for those who want to make huge profits overnight.

Yeah very small chance to repeat the history since the crypto people are smarter now and the price right now is the real value of the tokens. But there is a chance to get a big profits from new projects that potential to be on the top of currency in the upcoming years.

I am one of those lucky people who joined them at the time. I had a bit of bitcoin (nowhere near these amounts of course lol) and I cashed out at around 19k which was close to all time high, after I cashed out in a week bitcoin started to drop, during that time I sold my ethereum and all other coins as well except nano (god damn it nano) and I made a decent amount of profit.

I even gathered back my bitcoins exactly the same amount following may as well on 2018 because they were very cheap and I didn't spent all my money so I had the same amount of crypto but also spent a lot of money from December to may without every working a single day thanks to right time to sell. It is a great feeling to find the top, it is even great to find the bottom and buy there.

yes i agree with you. ethereum and other altcoins will be able to reach high prices like 2017 when bitcoin has reached the moon and touched the price of $ 20,000.
Most crypto users are optimistic that in 2021 after bitcoin is reduced by half in 2020 bitcoin can reach a new ATH and make the altcoin market green again. hopefully our hopes can be realized. bitcoin prices are very volatile unpredictable we can only hope and wait.

whatever you say the answer is time. because anyone will never know whether the 2017 market can be repeated again or sebalinya last until the next period. but for most cryptoqurrency holders always believe that cryptoqurrency still has a chance to raise the price again, especially btc. I believe if BTC can touch the price of $ 20k it will likely affect other cryptoqurrency prices.

Wow sell at the peak was the smartest move from ETH team and make lots of ETH holder lost their money because of buying there. I hope with those money, ETH team should grow their project technical and do not exit. And for those who buy at ATH price, i think dont hope the price get back there soon unless the project have something really special in the future.

Bigger and better times are 2017 in the world of Ciptro. Toe it all, does not mean that it will not return this time.King coins are bit coins that cause all the coins to rise and fall.Everyone is expecting a change in the market 2020 this year.

If I will be on that same position in the year 2017 holding such massive number of Ethereum in my account, maybe I will surely be tempted to sell out all of it in one blow because of what I can acquire like what Vitalik Buterin did. It is a matter of decision making with the instinct predicting what might be the outcome of the scenario and the flow within the market. So Buterin have made the right decision selling what he have because if he have waited longer, maybe he won't be able to sell his ETH at a higher value compared for today.

Never doubt what the market can be. I, myself honestly still into believing that what happens in 2017 can happen in no time so we must just expect the unexpected to happen.

We're still paying for the 2017 bubble, and I'm *not* hoping for a repeat of it, even tho it was good times all around for as long as it lasted.

Don't kid yourself about it not being able to happen again, because markets move in cycles and investors have very short memories when it comes to bull markets and bubbles.  A repeat of 2017 might not happen this year and maybe not even in 2020, but it *will* happen again, believe me.

With the Eth 2.0 happening, or at least the proof of stake part, I would expect it to do well even if bitcoin is lagging.  Should be interesting to see what happens at least.

Some projects that raised funds had a time limit on how long they had to wait before spending their budget so it could be that or a large holder or group of holders, but there's plenty of liquidity in the market for ETH so there'll be plenty of eager buyers if any serious dumping does occur

You are right crypto currency investors have strong faith towards the Bitcoin because we have seen this year the price of Bitcoin touched more than 13000$ and has huge chance the price of the BTC will easily cross more than 20000$ in the coming year. It will surely the altcoin to increase their prices.

That's not anything less then extraordinary, knowing when to sell is great thing in itself. I wish he should have tweeted or something at that time so we also could have sold lol

of course all ethereum holders would want ethereum prices to return to 2017 but as you said op the current crypto market conditions are different from 2017. so I think it is quite difficult to make the eth price back to $ 1,400. although later on when bitcoin can pump after decreasing by half maybe eth will also pump but this may take longer and maybe the increase value is not high like in 2017. only time can answer whether eth can pump again like 2017 or not? we wait.

No way he would have done that otherwise the market will crumble as it's basically the same as telling people to dump their coin altogether at the same moment which could further drive down the price and making thin of available liquidity.
In reality, it will be called a suicide move because that's what practically will happen if vitalin ever tell people such a thing beforehand.

Well i guess it is definitely okay to do so
Especially from the foundation side
That would result them more fiat currency where it can be spent on development, hiring programmer and also move along the project
Proper funding and proper fund allocation is definitely something that should be done

For his 30,000 ETH which he liquidate, i think it's fine anyhow
I mean its a reward to himself for the entire idea of Ethereum (Smart contract Blockchain)

Actually from what I remember,,, he sold twice in 2016 and 2017. I was around for the second one it was only a few million dollars. Haha,,, only!

But he sold at very low prices by the way. If he held until today he would have made a lot more money. So that shows he was not even a speculator which is a good thing. Do you not think so?

Yeah right, it would be much better if he shared he's fate with us so we able to sell everything before this huge fall happened. But there's no way for those investors who've been trapped along with the high hopes to get something bigger from this project.

course there are still a hope because eth is not just a kind of ordinary coin but i see many potentials to this coin  . they dont need to tweet or post some hints before they sell because it does not make sense at all to do that  .  they will only look like they are bragging  and will make them bad in in the font of the people . this also cause people to panic disrupting thier plans to sell  because the price can drop imediately  . the said amount was nothing compared to other sellers of cryptos  .

Why not? At least the Ethereum community is still strong, and I'm waiting for the event change from PoW to PoS in the next time. Honestly, if the sharks want to create a robust bullish trend to come back $1,400 again, I'm sure we will see many FUD, lousy news, delist, or anything like these to dump the ETH price in the nearest time.

PoS is necessary for Ethereum because it needs to stop the "feature" unlimited supply coin like now :P. However, I don't know the devs of Ethereum really want to do that or not ... ;D

And then what? You and the rest of us will sell earlier than him. Of course he will not let that happen because the market might fall down rapidly which result to a bad point of exit ;D. He is wise no doubt, but this also means a suffering for small holders like us. Actually, I can't anything right now but to laugh at myself — laughing and questioning why it seems I'm trapped with this miserable market *sigh.

Since you said that the market is now more matured, I do think that the next bull run of this market will be bigger than ever. Why? Because other than the mature of investors, the tech side of this space is now more matured as well, no surprise that more and more traditional big companies want to enter this field. Besides, I also see that some excellent blockchain projects appear since 2017 with dedicated team and innovative idea, not only-whitepaper projects anymore. The strong projects always know what they need to do at this sensitive time which is building, this is not the time to only talk about token price, and when everybody realize the real potential and the mature of this technology, that is the time the BIGGEST FOMO will comes.

that makes sense for me to see that, it's better to see him tweeted at that time and we can also follow that decision.
but that has already passed and by the way why does the team create an announcement right now? just hope the team can be more transparent to the all of pre-mined coin lol

Yeah the real value of cryptocurrency is not showing up yet, people are still comfort in their zone doing trading everyday with some little profits. When they realize they're buying and selling a thing that really valuable in the future i'm sure they will just buy more and more to collect as much as possible good cryptocurrency which will boom in the upcoming years.

actually anything in the cryptoqurrency space can happen at any time, but speaking of ethereum which once reached a price of $ 1,400 I don't think the time will repeat itself like in 2017. and there may be a price increase for ETH, if BTC can reduce by half of the current amount. but not for ETH $ 1,400

This shows their trust in the coin in the long run as they never expect the price to go further and so is the reason they sold $100 million worth of their assets when the price was rallying and even there were reports that Charlie Lee who created Litecoin sold all of his coins during the rally and all the developer made their massive profits during the past rally and i hence i highly doubt whether we will see a rally like that in these coins ever again.

2017 was the peak of the cryptocurrency market with extremely strong growth. ETH price peaked at $ 1,400, which could have earned as much as $ 100 million. this is terrible.  :o

they are very unwise to liquidate ETH at the time it reached the highest level of all time. In 2017 everyone wanted to come back again but that was just a wish. It will not happen again because this cryptocurrency market has matured.

Vitalik Buterin, having sold 30,000 of his personal ETH during the highest ETH rally, was a wise decision. There are many who have done the same. If something unexpected happens to ETH now, I won't miss it.

although bitcoin can make pumps on the market after halving, I think the thought of ethereum being able to fly that high seems to be difficult. it could be the same case as this year. where bitcoin pumps, but not ethereum and other altcoins.

i agree its not really impossible for eth to reach the price in 2017 or break the ATH
only if bitcoin price increase in the next halving because some of altcoin price of altcoin depend on bitcoin like eth

It's not over yet, as long as Vitalik still has tens of thousands of ETHs personally, the opportunity for ETH to return to the highest price is still there. I believe that Vitalik still has tens of thousands of ETH and did not sell all ETH assets in 2018 ago. I am sure that the price of ETH can reach the highest price again.

Yes not yet the end for Ethereum, so we should not worry at it as we can see that he's doing something for the sake of Ethereum that he's not just sleeping somewhere, still he's doing marketing, developing it and telling to people the importance of it and we can still see it in most projects, so there is no reason to be worry at it.

ethereum has potential, as long as development continues, I also believe that ethereum can reach that price. but it does take time to achieve it and we have to wait eth can reach the expected price

If he had sold 100$ million in 2017, I think he had sold most of his ETH. In 2018, I read an article about this issue and I found Vitalik's ETH address, it seems that he no longer holds too much ETH. Anyway, hopefully he can help this project grow continuously and the price can surpass ATH 2017, although it is very difficult for the current market situation

why it can be unwise? Isnt it a wise strategy to sell in peak?

I dont think so, as long as there is no regulations in cryptocurrency, the price is always so volatile
it is very possible to reach new ATH again in the future