A wallet linked to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes reportedly purchased 1,332.5 ETH worth about $2.53 million on July 21, 2026, according to on-chain tracking data shared on social media platform X, as Ethereum climbs back above $1,900.
Inside the Reported Buy
The wallet’s link to Hayes comes from on-chain monitoring accounts, cited variously as OnchainLens and Lookonchain across different outlets, and not from Hayes himself.
For context, the wallet in question sold 6,000 ETH in June for roughly $10 million at prices just under $1,700, realizing a loss of about $606,000.
It then reversed course earlier this month, accumulating roughly 1,939 ETH across two OTC-style transactions, including a specific purchase on July 16 of 1,293 ETH for about $2.5 million when ETH first crossed $1,900 in months.
Critics have pointed to a recurring habit tied to this wallet of publicly favoring tokens including HYPE, ZEC, and WLD before quietly exiting those positions.
Separately, other Ethereum whales have also been accumulating this week, with one wallet buying roughly $13.5 million in ETH, another spending $20 million for 10,501 ETH, and a third withdrawing 7,000 ETH from Binance.
The Institutional Narrative
Ethereum’s staking ratio crossed an all-time high above 33% at the end of June, according to CryptoQuant, a shift Bitmine Immersion Technologies Chairman Tom Lee has tied to BlackRock’s iShares Staked Ethereum ETF, which locks most of its holdings into staking contracts. “Unlike the crypto bear market of 2022, Wall Street is building on Ethereum,” Lee said.
Institutions and ETFs held more than 9% of Ethereum’s total supply as of last year, a share that has likely grown since, and Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick has argued ETH treasury vehicles offer stronger relative value than comparable Bitcoin and Solana products, citing staking yield specifically.
For more on how traditional finance is building out institutional crypto access, our coverage of Morgan Stanley’s E*TRADE crypto trading launch covers a related development in that space.
Price Levels and What Analysts Are Watching
ETH traded in a range around $1,900 to $1,930 as of Tuesday, holding above $1,900 for the second time in the past week, with a double bottom pattern near $1,500 and a bullish RSI divergence supporting the near-term setup, though price remains below its 100-day EMA with resistance at $2,035 and a bigger test near $2,400.
KALEO on X projected ETH could reach $2,300 within a month but warned of a possible drop toward $1,200 by September.
Moreover, Crypto Patel called current levels part of a long-term accumulation zone between $1,200 and $1,800, citing speculative targets between $10,000 and $20,000 for the next cycle, a figure far removed from the current price and worth treating as one analyst’s speculative view rather than a forecast.
What this means for you: the institutional case for Ethereum rests on structural data like staking ratios and ETF flows, which is separate from whether any single wallet’s activity, confirmed or not, should influence a trading decision.
