Ethereum Pierces $2,000 as Vitalik and DeFi Founders Dump into Liquidity Void
ETH slides to $1,865 as Vitalik Buterin and Aave’s Stani Kulechov liquidate over $21M combined, forcing a market flush.
Ethereum surrendered the psychological $2,000 fortress Friday, trading as low as $1,865 after a synchronized exit by protocol founders triggered a cascade of long liquidations. The catalyst? On-chain capitulation from the network’s own architect.
Data tracked by Arkham Intelligence confirms vitalik.eth offloaded 6,183 ETH (~$13.2 million) over the last 72 hours. The sales were executed via CoW Swap, fragmenting orders to mask the impact, but the signal was unmistakable: insiders are raising cash.
The Founder Flight
The bleeding wasn’t isolated to Buterin. Just hours before the sub-$2,000 break, Aave founder Stani Kulechov liquidated 4,503 ETH (~$8.4 million). His exit price averaged $1,857, essentially front-running the deeper slide.
The optics are brutal. When retail sees the architects of Ethereum and DeFi’s flagship lending protocol selling into a 30% weekly drawdown, ‘buy the dip’ narratives die instantly.
The market structure was already fractured. U.S. spot ETH ETFs have bled $2.5 billion in net outflows over four months, leaving market makers with zero appetite to absorb founder-sized sell walls. Funding rates across major derivatives venues have flipped deeply negative, signaling a crowded short trade that is actively hunting the $1,800 liquidation clusters.
Austerity or Abandonment?
Buterin’s camp frames the sales as operational necessity. Recent posts allude to “mild austerity” at the Ethereum Foundation, with proceeds earmarked for privacy research and public goods. But the timing, selling into the weakest technical structure in months, reads as a vote of no confidence to an edgy market.
ETH now sits precariously above $1,800. A loss of this level risks a flush toward $1,550, a zone not tested since the early stages of the cycle. For now, liquidity has vanished.
