In the Eastern Eight Time Zone this week, two on-chain operations with significant symbolic volume and identity have been highlighted: on one side, a wallet associated with Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin has pledged a large amount of ETH to MakerDAO in exchange for DAI; on the other side, the Kingdom of Bhutan has disposed of its BTC assets, disclosed as a one-time sale of approximately $22 million worth of chips. One is a veteran entrepreneur in the crypto industry, and the other is a sovereign nation that embraced crypto assets early on, providing distinctly different asset response paths amid the same market fluctuations, outlining two diverging narrative lines of "using coins to hedge" and "passively selling coins" in this cycle.

Ethereum Founder Wallet Under Pressure 13…

● Identity and Address Background: The on-chain address 0xABED…2FE7 is widely regarded as a wallet associated with Joseph Lubin, which has long been deeply involved in the Ethereum ecosystem, primarily holding ETH as its core asset. In the current climate of cautious sentiment, any large movements from this address are seen as an indirect statement on the industry's fundamentals and medium to long-term expectations.

● Holding Scale and Concentration: According to Onchain Lens data, this wallet currently holds approximately 137,908 ETH, valued at about $287 million based on the briefing. This volume not only far exceeds that of ordinary whale addresses but, due to the identity of its holder, is tied to Ethereum's technological direction, governance, and ecosystem confidence, making it an important window to observe whether "native core figures are still betting on Ethereum."

● Current Pledge Scale: In this attention-grabbing operation, the wallet has pledged 15,000 ETH as collateral, estimated to be worth about $31.43 million. This proportion is not an aggressive move of putting all chips on the table, but the absolute amount is sufficient to constitute an institutional-level financing, interpreted within the Ethereum narrative as a symbolic action of "the founder's camp still leveraging heavy ETH to activate on-chain credit."

Pledging 15,000 ETH for…

● On-chain Operation Path: On-chain data shows that 0xABED…2FE7 has pledged 15,000 ETH to the MakerDAO protocol, borrowing approximately 4.1 million DAI in return. This operation follows the typical decentralized collateralized lending logic: using mainstream crypto assets as over-collateral, releasing on-chain dollar-denominated assets from the system, and reserving flexible space for subsequent uses.

● Role of MakerDAO and Common Purposes: As one of the largest decentralized collateralized lending platforms by market capitalization and volume, MakerDAO has long served as the infrastructure for "on-chain pledge financing." Operations similar to the Lubin-associated wallet are often used for several purposes: first, to borrow DAI for other asset allocation or investment; second, to meet the operational, salary, or tax payment needs of project parties or teams off-chain; third, for short-term liquidity management, preparing for potential large expenditures.

● Commonality with Traditional Pledge Financing: Without speculating on the specific flow of the 4.1 million DAI, it can be objectively compared to the similarity with traditional finance's "equity pledge + financing": the holder has not sold ETH, but rather used it as collateral to obtain liquidity; during price fluctuations, the pledger bears the pressure of collateral value fluctuations and potential margin calls, while retaining the right to keep long-term holdings. This model essentially uses the future potential appreciation of assets as collateral to realize part of the liquidity in advance.

Bhutan's One-time Sale of Nearly 22,000…

● Key Data and Scale: In contrast to the Lubin-associated wallet's choice of pledge financing, the Kingdom of Bhutan has been reported to have sold 284.8 BTC. According to a single source cited in the briefing, the total value of this batch of BTC is approximately $22 million, an individual amount less than the conventional scale of traditional sovereign foreign exchange operations, but still significant in the context of publicly disclosed national-level crypto asset disposal cases.

● Information Source and Uncertainty: It is important to emphasize that the current reports on the scale and amount of Bhutan's recent sale mainly come from a single channel, and the briefing clearly states a lack of more complete timeline details. This means that, without more on-chain cross-verification and official explanations, the outside world should treat the related data cautiously, viewing this $22 million level disposal as an "observed sample," rather than a qualitative conclusion about its entire crypto asset strategy.

● Strategy Differences Among Sovereign Participants: Bhutan has long been seen as a relatively crypto-friendly sovereign participant, frequently appearing in discussions about "national-level layouts for crypto assets and mining operations." The choice to directly sell BTC in the market rather than pledging it for on-chain credit, like the Lubin wallet, inherently releases a different asset management logic: the sovereign side is closer to the cash flow management preferences of traditional finance or sovereign wealth funds, locking in nominal gains by selling assets when funds are needed, rather than continuing to bear the volatility of crypto assets.

Two Distinct Choices Amid the Same Market Fluctuation

● Mirrored Comparison of Operation Paths: Against the backdrop of the same market fluctuations, the Lubin-associated wallet chose to pledge ETH for DAI, opting for the path of "retaining coin-based positions + increasing debt"; while Bhutan directly sold BTC, converting it into fiat or equivalent low-volatility assets. Both are hedging against uncertainty, but stand at opposite ends of "hedging with on-chain credit" and "hedging by reducing risk assets."

● Divergence in Risk Tolerance: From the perspective of risk exposure, after the operation, the ETH long exposure of the Lubin-associated wallet remains fully intact, merely adding a layer of debt denominated in DAI, bearing the compounded risks of future price fluctuations and liquidation line management; Bhutan, on the other hand, has locked in this portion of market value as a more stable asset form by selling BTC, relinquishing the uncertainties of gains and losses from subsequent price movements, in exchange for a significantly converged fiscal stability.

● Objective Differences in Balance Sheet Flexibility: Without speculating on any subjective motives, the impact of these two types of operations on balance sheet flexibility also shows significant differences: under the collateralized lending model, the asset side still holds high-volatility, high-potential return ETH, while the liability side adds stable-valued debt, slightly increasing overall leverage; whereas the direct sale of BTC compresses the proportion of high-volatility assets and increases the cash or cash-equivalent ratio, making the sovereign entity's response to macroeconomic or geopolitical shocks more aligned with traditional foreign reserve management logic.

Intertwined Emotions of Whale Losses and Bullish Sentiment

● Amplified Sample of Short-term Volatility: Beyond these two large operations, there have also been cases on-chain with more "scatter sentiment" characteristics—whales have built a position of $7 million in HYPE within 12 hours, currently showing an unrealized loss of about $272,000 (data from BlockBeats report). This behavior of rapidly expanding positions on high-volatility tokens and enduring six-figure dollar-level unrealized losses in a short time constitutes an extreme slice of market sentiment in this round.

● General Bullish Sentiment in the Industry: Echoing this is a remark from industry veteran Yi Lihua on social media—"Being in the industry always makes it hard to resist being bullish"—which has been widely shared. It reflects a prevalent mindset: deep participants are often more willing to view pullbacks as "discounted chips," rather than simple risk alerts, naturally carrying a preference expectation for future price increases in their narratives.

● Tension Between Sentiment and Path Choices: Placing this sentiment alongside Lubin's pledge without selling and Bhutan's selling off creates a rather tense picture: on one end, native entrepreneurs and whales are "gritting their teeth to endure volatility" on different assets, attempting to leverage financing or increase bets for the future; on the other end, sovereign entities choose to reduce positions with a more traditional cash flow safety logic. On-chain data here not only records the flow of funds but also amplifies the distinctly different psychological expectations and tolerance boundaries of different behavioral subjects under the same market cycle.

Next Steps for Sovereigns and Industry Giants

In these seemingly unrelated on-chain events, the common underlying theme is the increasing divergence between retaining chips and cashing out amid the same cycle of uncertainty: industry native giants are more willing to amplify long-term bets on core assets through pledging and lending; while sovereign participants are attempting to convert higher volatility assets into more stable fiscal buffers. For ordinary participants, such large operations may habitually be interpreted as "bullish" or "bearish," but under the current information conditions, a more prudent approach is to wait for more on-chain data and official disclosures to verify the real impact on liquidity and sentiment, rather than deducing price paths based solely on a single transaction. It can be expected that as sovereign nations and crypto-native giants continue to act on their balance sheets, they will increasingly become the protagonists of the next market narrative: each pledge, each reduction will leave clear coordinates on-chain, providing a new reference frame for understanding this round of crypto and macro system games.

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