# Analyst Says Ether Whale Wallet’s History Does Not Establish Foundation Selloff

By Enna Lee

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/investing/57778
Published: 2026-11-15T11:29:21.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-15T11:29:21.000Z
Section: Investing

> Specter said 0xF39 was the largest single buyer in the 2017 BAT ICO; historical transfers alone do not establish an official Ethereum Foundation selloff.

On-chain analyst Specter said a whale wallet’s transaction history does not establish an official Ethereum Foundation selloff.

The wallet, 0x5CBC6299faB3320E7758ac97fd4CA45E5B72209, received 17,700 Ether (ETH), valued at about $79 million at the time, and 10 million DAI from 0xF39 in August 2025.

Specter traced 0xF39’s initial ETH to two transfers totaling 20,756 ETH from verified Ethereum Foundation addresses in December 2015, valued at about $4.8 million then. The funds moved to 0xF39 on May 31, 2017. About two hours later, it committed 20,522 ETH, then worth roughly $4.78 million, to Brave’s Basic Attention Token (BAT) crowdsale. The purchase made 0xF39 the largest single buyer in the ICO, and it received 131.3 million BAT.

0xF39 later sold 109 million BAT for 84,300 ETH and $7.6 million in stablecoins. Across the following eight years, its on-chain activity included lending through Compound, collateral transactions involving Maker and liquidity mining. The address recorded 3,425 transactions and more than 16,000 transfer records; related addresses made several ETH withdrawals from Bitfinex between 2016 and 2020.

Specter said the initial funds may have come from an Ethereum Foundation private sale, an over-the-counter transaction or compensation for an early team member or engineer. The analyst described 0x5CBC as likely belonging to an active individual investor or independent institution, and said the historical transfers alone do not establish an official Ethereum Foundation selloff.