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A large amount of long-dormant ETH moved on September 30, according to on-chain analytics platform Santiment. The coins that changed hands had been sitting untouched for a long time.
Exchange balances stayed stable. That combination matters, because old coins waking up usually sets traders bracing for a sell-off.
What the on-chain data shows
Santiment’s reading for September 30 centered on a metric called age consumed. It rises when coins that have sat still for a long time suddenly move.
On September 30, that metric ran high. Yet exchange balances did not jump in step, which suggests those coins were not dumped onto trading venues all at once.
Ethereum’s exchange netflow turned positive that day, with a net inflow of roughly 33.9k ETH, arriving amid otherwise stable exchange balances.
No significant price action or confirmed selling pressure was reported in connection with the September 30 transfers, based on available reports.
A month of wallets waking up
On September 21, four wallets that had been inactive for more than two years collectively sent 48,047 ETH to Bitfinex, valued at approximately $130.7 million.
An early Ethereum holder who originally acquired 3,000 ETH at an average price of $18.80 back in 2017 sold 2,000 ETH by the end of the month, bringing in about $6.19 million. That investor still kept a third of the original stack.
Whale activity more broadly picked up sharply as well. Large-scale transfers surged nearly 500% week-over-week during September.
Breaking the September pattern
ETH posted monthly gains of more than 9% in September 2026, running counter to the so-called September curse, the historically weak seasonal stretch that has made the month something of a running joke among crypto traders.
What this means for ETH holders
Old coins moved, whales got busy, and inflows ticked up, but exchange reserves did not balloon and the price did not crack.
The roughly 33.9k ETH net inflow on September 30 shows some holders were positioning coins where they can be sold quickly. The 48,047 ETH sent to Bitfinex on September 21 adds to that picture.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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