At the beginning of this month, ETH briefly fell below $1,700. According to AiCoin data, as the overall sentiment turned bearish, F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun (@satofishi) related addresses made opposite moves on-chain: in about half a month since the price fell below $1,700, this address has withdrawn approximately 54,500 ETH from Binance, estimated to be around $93.25 million, of which approximately 37,400 ETH (about $63.88 million) was immediately transferred into Ethereum staking contracts, forming a large PoS staking position, while the remaining approximately 17,100 ETH remains unclear in its direction; considering that the current annualized staking yield of Ethereum is roughly within the 3%-5% range, and neither the involved parties nor F2Pool officials have provided explanations, this counter-trend withdrawal and locking of staking has been viewed by some participants as a long-term bullish signal, intensifying discussions in the market about whether "smart money" is positioning for Ethereum at low levels.
Large holders act in the opposite direction after ETH dips below $1,700
At the beginning of this month, when ETH briefly fell below the $1,700 mark, the price broke market psychological expectations, leading to a rapid shift towards pessimism. Main narratives on-chain and off-chain transitioned to a "defensive mode," with more participants inclined to reduce their positions and observe, prioritizing the recovery of dollar liquidity by adopting a strategy of "exit first, then reassess" to respond to potential further declines. In a generally risk-averse environment, short-term chips are more easily driven by emotions.
In contrast to this risk-averse tendency, on-chain analyst Yu Jin and PANews' public materials indicate that since ETH fell below $1,700, within about half a month, the address related to F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun has chosen to withdraw approximately 54,500 ETH from Binance, of which about 37,400 ETH was further transferred into Ethereum staking contracts, locking in mid-to-long-term positions within the 3%-5% annualized yield range. F2Pool, as a globally renowned Bitcoin and Ethereum mining pool, has a founding team with long participation experience in public blockchain cycles. Such large on-chain operations have traditionally been viewed by some market funds as reference coordinates for mid-to-long-term judgments: on one side is the short-term mindset of panic selling after breaking prices, while on the other side is the long-term allocation logic of countering the trend and locking in positions at emotional lows. These two distinctly different risk preferences coexist within the same time window, clearly illustrating the structural opposition of bullish and bearish sentiments in the current Ethereum market.
54,500 ETH Withdrawn from Binance
According to monitoring by on-chain analyst Yu Jin, within about half a month after ETH fell below $1,700, the Wang Chun related address has successively withdrawn approximately 54,500 ETH from Binance. Based on the price at that time, the total amount is approximately $93.25 million and is highly concentrated in this round of bearish sentiment decline. Analyzing the on-chain path, these ETH uniformly show signs of exiting from a centralized exchange, flowing into Ethereum addresses benefiting Wang Chun, constituting a typical "withdraw to enter" action, rather than a simple transfer between internal exchange accounts or temporary circulation due to matchmaking.
This kind of concentrated withdrawal of funds signifies that this 54,500 ETH has shifted from a custody state on an exchange to being managed independently on-chain, clearly belonging to the same interest party. On one hand, once the chips are moved on-chain, every large movement will be publicly recorded, making their overall exposure and subsequent operational paths easier for the market to track, significantly increasing the transparency and exposure of individual positions; on the other hand, compared to remaining in Binance accounts where they could be traded at any time, moving significant chips into self-managed addresses essentially sacrifices short-term trading flexibility in exchange for autonomous arrangements on position rhythms and subsequent uses (including staking), with the risk bearing directly dependent on the individual's judgment of ETH's mid-to-long-term trend.
37,400 ETH Locked into Staking Contracts
According to on-chain data statistics, from the approximately 54,500 ETH withdrawn to the self-managed address from Binance, about 37,400 ETH has been further sent to Ethereum staking contracts, achieving PoS staking. According to PANews reports, this portion of positions is valued at approximately $63.88 million at the time, representing a concentrated entry from a single source, rather than a simple "withdraw for backup, remain on-chain to observe" idle state. In other words, these chips haven’t stopped at a transferable intermediate state, but have been directly locked into the consensus layer, forsaking the flexibility of short-term high-frequency trading.
With Ethereum's completion of transitioning to PoS and staking annualized yields generally maintained in the 3%-5% range, such a scale of staking is closer to "long-term locking aimed at obtaining medium to low-risk passive income," rather than relying on active trading strategies dependent on short-term price fluctuations. Staking ETH will directly participate in network consensus, expanding the scale of chips being involved in validation, thus providing incremental support for PoS's security and validator participation; from the on-chain representation, this action binds huge personal chips to Ethereum's security mechanism while passively signaling the market with a bias toward long-term, participatory configurations.
Why the mining pool founder dares to bet on Ethereum
From the perspective of "smart money," leading mining pools that have long been deeply involved in Bitcoin and Ethereum mining often have a keener perception of on-chain cycles and macro fluctuations. During this period of ETH falling below $1,700 and a bearish sentiment, when Wang Chun's related address withdrew about 54,500 ETH from Binance and locked around 37,400 ETH into PoS staking contracts, it essentially made a high-leverage temporal bet during a price downturn: the staked assets are difficult to quickly exit over a longer period, indicating that such a decision to "sacrifice liquidity for returns" only becomes cost-effective when there is strong confidence in the mid-to-long-term performance of the assets.
However, this kind of action serves primarily as a strategy signal for individuals or a few institutions and cannot simply be extrapolated as the mainstream consensus of the entire mining pool industry or the Ethereum ecosystem. Currently, Ethereum's PoS staking annualized yield is roughly in the 3%-5% range, and when the price falls to around $1,700, combined with potential long-term price elasticity, it may already constitute a "manageable return/risk combination" in the eyes of participants like Wang Chun. It also reflects their positive judgment on the continuous operation and consensus security of the Ethereum public chain; however, in the absence of public explanations from Wang Chun or F2Pool officials, a more cautious approach is to view this as a mid-to-long-term allocation choice made by a heavily involved industry participant at a specific price range, rather than the direct representation of market collective expectations.
Can smart money signals trigger a following?
Overall, the actions of Wang Chun's related address in the bearish phase after ETH fell below $1,700, by withdrawing approximately 54,500 ETH from Binance and locking approximately 37,400 ETH into staking contracts, indeed provide a narrative example of "counter-trend bullishness." However, given that only this one leading participant has been explicitly named and there is a lack of broader staking totals and large holder structural data, it is more appropriate to view this as an asset allocation decision from a single heavily invested address rather than a "smart money master switch" capable of representing an industry consensus inflection point. As of June 20, 2026, public information has not shown that more addresses of similar scale have simultaneously engaged in inverse staking of comparable magnitude. Hence, market participants, when referencing this case, should actively distinguish between idiosyncratic and trending signals: the case can be used to calibrate "someone dares to lock chips at this price range," but it is insufficient to independently support conclusions like "the market bottom has been validated." Subsequent on-chain variables that hold more reference value include: whether new large incoming addresses continue to appear in the staking contracts, whether these addresses similarly concentrated their positions under price pressure, and where the remaining approximately 17,100 ETH that has not yet been staked goes—whether it continues to be staked in batches, flows back to exchanges, or enters other contract scenarios. Only when these paths gradually become clearer, and repeated behaviors among multiple addresses and entities emerge can the so-called "smart money signal" evolve from isolated events to a relatively reliable trend observation framework.
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