In a market timing and strategic execution tour de force, a well-known cryptocurrency whale has reaped a staggering $23.3 million profit from trading AAVE tokens.
These cumulative profits are realized after seven months of trades on the well-earned assumption that future prices will diverge from currently expressed market prices.
A Whale’s Strategic Journey in AAVE
The story started on June 23, 2024, when a deep-pocketed investor, now labeled a “whale,” set out on their AAVE odyssey. Using a wallet known as 0x991, the whale pulled off a breathtakingly huge trade, taking 89,109 AAVE tokens from the crypto exchange OKX. At the time of the withdrawal, AAVE was going for a comparatively low $82.55; the paltry appearance of that price means the cost of acquisition was a shade over 7.36 million bucks.
For the next seven months, this whale exhibited extraordinary patience and discipline, retaining their AAVE stash while the market steadily surged. By late January 2025, the strategy had paid off in an extraordinarily grand manner.
The whale methodically started to sell off their stake, transferring the tokens over to Binance at an average price of $344.24 per token. That price represented a mind-boggling 317% return on the original investment, even considering the tokens’ acquisition cost of $7.36 million. When you take into account the withdrawal fee that had to be paid—hardly something to complain about when your “return on investment” translates to $23.3 million in profit!—the whole thing becomes a little more comprehensible as a strategy for accumulating wealth.
The Final Phase: Unloading the Remaining Stash
In the past week, the whale divested the last of their holdings in this high-stakes trade. They took in 49,640 AAVE tokens worth $17.1 million and put them in Binance. They sold those tokens at an average price of $344.55 each, effectively ending the trade.
These transactions are linked to a wallet that, just 11 hours ago, deposited the remaining 11,634 AAVE tokens (worth $3.49 million) to Binance. And with this latest move on the crypto chessboard, the whale has fully closed its position. AAVE trading volume has surged in corresponding fashion to these moves. This could look like a setup for a counteraction in AAVE price, especially with recent bullish movement in the overall crypto markets.
0x991 is not acting alone, which is interesting. The wallet is part of a larger operation involving another wallet controlled by the same whale. These wallets, together, coordinated to execute the trades. This highlights the level of planning and precision involved in large-scale trading operations.
A Lesson in Whale-Level Strategy
This trading underscores the significance of strategy, patience, and timing in the erratic domain of digital currency. The entity not only picked up AAVE at a bargain price during a market lull but also bided its time, waiting for the almost fourfold price increase, before selling..
The accomplished returns of the whale not only provide a lucrative windfall but also capture our attention because they index something not so often seen in the contemporary crypto markets: an old-school trading style of careful timing, calculated risk, and a bit of spread, all followed up with the classy touch of letting it not too obviously be seen that any of this was even going on.
The Impact on AAVE and the Market
Such attention-grabbing trades often bring considerable—if not excessive—attention to the crypto community. And this whale’s actions are no exception. By depositing tens of millions of dollars in AAVE and also selling substantial amounts on the exchanges, the whale could have easily influenced AAVE’s recent price movements to the extent that someone might think AAVE was undergoing some serious turbulence.
Still, the trade’s long-term impact on Aave’s market performance seems unlikely to be very big, if it’s anything at all. AAVE is a long-term play for me. Aave is not going anywhere. Aave has a chance to dominate. If I put these three sentences together, we create the impression that Aave is very much a long-term play. And we create the impression that Aave has a sustainable product and not something that’s going to be here today and gone tomorrow.
Conclusion
This $23.3 million profit-taking move is a stark reminder of the opportunities that exist in the cryptocurrency market for those with the resources, strategy, and discipline to capitalize on them. While retail traders often focus on short-term gains, this whale’s seven-month journey showcases the value of a longer-term, well-executed approach.
This whale is just one chapter in the ongoing evolution of AAVE as one of the leading DeFi tokens. For traders and would-be traders watching from the sidelines, it’s a powerful demonstration of the art and science of whale-level crypto trading.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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Image Source: skorzewiak/123RF // Image Effects by Colorcinch