Ethereum's $696M ETF Exodus Dwarfs the Foundation's $8M: Who's Selling?

Everyone's Blaming the Ethereum Foundation. The Real Sellers Are 87 Times Bigger.

Co-produced by Daniel Aharonoff and DigitalDan

As the chief editor of ethdan.me, I have watched this market blame the same wallet for a month — and on Friday, November 13, the numbers finally proved the crowd wrong. Ethereum slipped back below $2,000, trading near $1,935 after touching an intraday low of $1,894, and the loudest story on crypto Twitter was the Ethereum Foundation selling another 2,000 ETH. It sounds damning. It is also, by the numbers, almost irrelevant.

Here is the real story of this selloff: United States spot Ethereum ETFs dumped $695.9 million in November through November 11, while the Foundation-linked wallet sold about $8.03 million in the same month. That is not a rounding error. That is an 87-to-1 ratio. One side of this market is a rounding error. The other side is a landslide. So let me ask the question that actually matters: who is really selling Ethereum — and who, quietly, is buying it?

The $8 Million Sale Everyone Is Talking About

The wallet in question starts with 0x5CBC. On-chain analytics firm Lookonchain attributes it to the Ethereum Foundation, and several trade publications have adopted that attribution — though the Foundation itself has not confirmed this particular address, and that caveat matters. On Friday, the wallet sold another 2,000 ETH for about $3.87 million in the USDS stablecoin, swapped in two orders of 1,000 ETH each through the CoW Swap exchange.

It was the fourth round of sales from this wallet since October 12. Add it all up and the picture is small: the wallet has sold 4,000 ETH for roughly $8.03 million so far in November, and 6,785 ETH worth about $14.45 million since October 26. It still holds approximately 11,000 ETH, worth roughly $21.3 million at current prices. Across all of 2026, the Foundation's documented sales total around 20,000 ETH — about $45 million.

Now hold that $45 million in your head. We are about to compare it with something roughly 67 times larger.

The $696 Million Exodus Nobody Wants to Talk About

While the Foundation's $3.87 million sale dominated the timeline, the real money was walking out the front door of Wall Street. According to SoSoValue data, United States spot Ethereum ETFs lost a net $695.9 million in November through November 11. Investors redeemed shares in seven of the month's eight trading sessions. Only November 4 brought an inflow — a modest $53 million — and it was immediately swallowed by the selling around it.

The daily numbers tell the story of an accelerating exit:

• November 11 was the worst day: $144.8 million flowed out in a single session, and BlackRock's ETHA fund accounted for roughly $129.8 million of it. When the world's largest asset manager's Ethereum fund bleeds nine figures in a day, that is not retail panic. That is institutional repositioning.
• November 9 was nearly as bad: $184.6 million in withdrawals, with BlackRock's ETHA losing about $119.3 million on its own.
• The streak keeps growing: Farside Investors recorded six consecutive outflow sessions totaling approximately $531.9 million, and SoSoValue's fuller count puts the November total closer to $766 million once November 12 is included — which would push the ratio against the Foundation's sales to roughly 95 to 1.
• The funds are shrinking fast: combined assets under management in the spot Ethereum ETFs fell from $13.22 billion on October 30 to $11.65 billion by November 11. That is more than $1.5 billion of value gone in under two weeks, through a mix of redemptions and falling prices.

1. Redemptions Force Real Selling

This is the mechanic most people miss. When investors redeem ETF shares, fund managers do not just shuffle paper — they sell the underlying Ethereum in the open market to raise the cash. Every $100 million of ETF outflows is $100 million of ETH that has to find a buyer, or the price falls until it does. That is why ETF flows matter more than any single wallet: they are forced, mechanical, daily selling pressure.

2. BlackRock Is Leading the Exit

BlackRock's ETHA is the biggest spot Ethereum ETF, and it is also the biggest source of outflows. On November 11 alone it lost $129.8 million. The fund that once symbolized Wall Street's embrace of Ethereum is now the clearest evidence that the embrace has cooled. Small inflows at 21Shares ($1.21 million) and Invesco ($0.40 million) on November 12 barely register against that tide.

3. Six Straight Weeks of Outflows

Zoom out further and the picture gets worse. The spot Ethereum ETFs have now suffered six consecutive weeks of net outflows. This is not a bad day or a bad week. It is a six-week institutional retreat, and it is happening while Bitcoin has also fallen below $70,000 and technology stocks wobble after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation rattled the sector.

Whales Are Fighting Each Other While ETFs Leave

If the ETF story is the tide going out, the whale story is a knife fight in the surf. Large holders are not moving in one direction — they are moving in opposite directions, and the collisions are spectacular.

• The buyer: wallet 0x4cee added 10,380 ETH for about $19.91 million, lifting its holdings to 25,498 ETH. Its average entry price stands at $2,382 — well above current prices — leaving it sitting on an estimated $11.3 million unrealized loss. This whale is buying into the fall and bleeding for it.
• The seller: another large address withdrew about 8,876 ETH from the lending protocol Aave and swapped 16,700 ETH for $30.94 million in USDT stablecoin. A month earlier, the same address had bought 8,631 ETH at an average of $2,743. It bought high and sold low — the classic capitulation trade.
• The loser: wallet 0x69A8 sold 6,532 ETH worth approximately $13.62 million at an average price of $2,085, locking in a loss of roughly $3.1 million on Ethereum purchased about a month ago near $2,691. ETH had fallen roughly 23 percent from that entry by the time of the sale.
• The scale: put the aggregate whale and institutional selling together and it totals roughly $3 billion — more than 1.1 million ETH — against the Foundation's $45 million for the year. That is a ratio of about 67 to 1. The Foundation is not the story. It never was.

What's the Big Deal? Why $2,000 Matters

Losing $2,000 is not just a round number. It is a psychological line, a technical line, and a liquidation trigger all at once — and on Friday, all three fired together.

According to CoinGlass, roughly $249.8 million in Ethereum positions were liquidated over 24 hours, with leveraged long positions accounting for most of the forced closures. Every liquidation is a forced sale, which pushes the price lower, which triggers the next liquidation. It is a cascade, and $2,000 was the tripwire.

The technical picture is now genuinely oversold. Ethereum's daily Relative Strength Index stood at 24.09 — below the 30 threshold that marks oversold territory — while the MACD remained negative. Analysts have identified support near $1,920, the Fibonacci level ETH tested on Friday, with $1,833 as the next level if $1,920 breaks. Below that, the chart offers $1,900, $1,850, and $1,750 as the next floors. None of those are predictions. They are simply where buyers have to show up, or the cascade continues.

And yet — here is the twist the bears keep ignoring — Ethereum staking participation has reached approximately 36.3 percent of supply. More than a third of all ETH is locked up earning yield, not sitting on exchanges waiting to be sold. Exchange reserves are near decade lows. The supply that can actually be dumped in a panic keeps shrinking, even as the price falls. That tension — shrinking liquid supply against relentless ETF redemptions — is the real story of this market, and it is the story that will decide where ETH goes next.

One more quiet development worth noting: Ethereum developers postponed the planned Glamsterdam activation on the Hoodi testnet after identifying potential compatibility issues with existing smart contracts and applications. It is a delay, not a disaster — but on a day when confidence is already fragile, even a testnet postponement feeds the narrative that Ethereum's roadmap is slipping while its price bleeds.

Why You Should Care: Three Things to Watch Next

1. Monday's ETF Flows Will Set the Tone

If the outflows pause, the forced selling stops and the oversold bounce has room to breathe. If BlackRock's ETHA posts another nine-figure redemption day, $1,920 gets tested in earnest. Watch the Farside and SoSoValue numbers the way traders watch earnings — because right now, they are the market.

2. The Foundation's Remaining 11,000 ETH

The wallet still holds roughly 11,000 ETH, about $21.3 million. If it sells again, the timeline will erupt again — and it will be wrong again. The number to compare it against is always the ETF flow. Until the Foundation's sales even approach one-tenth of the ETF outflows, they are a sentiment signal, not a market force.

3. The Whale Who Keeps Buying

Wallet 0x4cee is now $11.3 million underwater on a 25,498 ETH position built at an average of $2,382. Either that whale is early and about to be vindicated, or it is the next capitulation headline. Whales that buy into falling knives either become legends or cautionary tales — and this one is only a few hundred dollars of price action away from either outcome.

Final Thoughts: Blame the Flow, Not the Wallet

As the chief editor of ethdan.me, I will say this plainly: the Ethereum Foundation selling $8 million of ETH in November is a footnote. United States spot Ethereum ETFs dumping $696 million in the same month is the headline. Whales moving $3 billion is the earthquake. When the next wallet sale flashes across your feed, ask the only question that matters — is this the flow, or is this the noise?

Right now, the flow says institutions are leaving, one whale is buying the dip with real conviction, and a third of all ETH is locked in staking while the rest fights over $2,000. That is a market at an inflection point, not a market with a villain. The Foundation makes a convenient villain. The numbers make a better story.

Co-produced by Daniel Aharonoff and DigitalDan

Stay tuned to ethdan.me for the latest Ethereum news, ETF flow analysis, and whale-watching coverage — because in a market this divided, the next headline is never far away.