The Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) Foundation has converted 1,700 ETH, valued at approximately $2.76 million, into Circle’s USDC (CRYPTO: USDC) stablecoin. 

What Happened: According to scopescan, an on-chain analytics firm, “the Ethereum Foundation has just sold 1,700 ETH ($2.76 million) for USDC.” The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization executed this transaction via Uniswap.

The Foundation’s holdings have been disclosed in their April 2022 report, revealing that they possessed about 395,000 ETH, representing approximately 0.297% of Ethereum’s total supply as of Q1 2022. Throughout the 2021 financial year, the Foundation allocated a total of $48 million towards research and development, as well as grants for developers working on the Ethereum ecosystem.

As per DeFiLlama data, the Ethereum Foundation currently holds 316,488 ETH, which amounts to a value of $502.7 million.

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Why It Matters: In parallel, market sentiment surrounding Ethereum has been experiencing significant fluctuations. Santiment, an analytics platform, reported that Ethereum’s price dropped to $1,570, sparking increased polarizing discussions within the crypto community. “Currently at its lowest fee levels of 2023, traders are growing impatient. Rising bearish sentiment is a good sign of an impending turnaround. Ethereum testing $1,550 as social dominance hits 7-month low.”

It is noteworthy that past instances of the Ethereum Foundation shifting tokens to crypto exchanges coincided with local tops in Ethereum’s price. For instance, on May 6, 2023, the Foundation transferred approximately 15,000 ETH, valued at $28.5 million, to the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, just before Ethereum experienced a subsequent drop over the following months.

Photo by Tomasz Makowski on Shutterstock

Price Action: At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $1,584, down 2.56% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.