Arthur Hayes transferred 508,647 ETH, worth approximately $1.5 million, to Galaxy Digital, sparking new speculation that this crypto veteran may be reducing his exposure. The move is notable because Hayes recently expressed one of his strongest bullish outlooks for Ethereum.
Arthur Hayes Ethereum sale speculation
On-chain data shows that the transaction started from a wallet linked to Hayes and arrived at a deposit address of Galaxy Digital.
Transfers to institutional parties do not always directly indicate a sale. However, such transactions are often associated with liquidity provision or over-the-counter trading.
The transaction takes place while Ethereum is trading just below the psychologically important level of $3,000, after a volatile December month with ETF outflows and adjustments in derivatives.
Despite this overbooking, Hayes still owns more than 4,500 ETH.
Any potential sale would therefore amount to crypto portfolio management and not a complete exit.
The timing is striking. Just a few days ago, Hayes presented an extensive forecast for Ethereum’s institutional future, stating that large financial institutions will eventually accept the boundaries of private blockchains.
“You cannot have a private blockchain. You need a public blockchain for security and real use.”
Hayes mentions stablecoins as the catalyst that makes Ethereum understandable for traditional financial parties. He predicted that banks will increasingly build Web3 infrastructure on Ethereum instead of on their own ledgers.
“You will see that large banks will engage with crypto and Web3 via a public blockchain. I think that public blockchain will be Ethereum.”
He acknowledges that privacy remains a pain point for institutional adoption, but believes this will be resolved at the application or Layer-2 level, with Ethereum remaining the security base.
“They might build an L2 with privacy features… but the foundation, the security layer, remains Ethereum.”
The market conditions are, however, mixed. Ethereum struggles to stay above $3,000 for an extended period, while spot ETH ETFs showed clear outflows in mid-December and implied volatility in the derivatives market has decreased. This indicates more caution than panic.
At the protocol level, activity is increasingly moving to rollups, keeping transaction costs low but limiting fee revenues for Ethereum itself.
Hayes was also realistic about valuation expectations and provided a long-term target instead of a short-term prediction.
“If ETH reaches $20,000, you will need about 50 Ethereum to have a million… by the end of the cycle, during the next presidential elections.”
Hayes' on-chain activity indicates tactical positioning, not a change of insight. His expectation remains: Ethereum wins as stablecoins and institutional on-chain finance scale up.
However, the market is still waiting for the moment when this narrative truly becomes reality.
