An Ethereum wallet acquired 27,553 ETH for approximately $62.97 million within five hours, according to on-chain tracking data. Lookonchain, citing blockchain investigator ZachXBT, linked the wallet, which begins with 0x9EcA, to a suspected European entity that lost more than $106 million across several centralized exchange accounts. The purchases landed at a moment when Ethereum funding rates sat near their softest levels since the June market bottom.

Lookonchain said in an X post that ZachXBT flagged an EU entity suspected of losing more than $106 million from multiple centralized exchange accounts. The attacker then used wallet 0x9EcA to buy 27,553 ETH on-chain at an average price of roughly $2,286, with the five-hour buying totaling about $62.97 million.

Lookonchain also noted that funds moved through multiple platforms after the purchases, with earlier legs including USDC funding from Kraken. Public posts do not prove the full trail of the suspected stolen funds, but they do show a large ETH position building in a single wallet after the alleged exchange losses.

The print is not, on its own, a clean "conviction whale" signal. Whale alerts cannot separate a fresh buyer from a getaway buy, a distinction that matters for readers who treat large ETH transfers as directional cues. The buying also unfolded while Ethereum's price still holds near $2,300 and ETF outflows keep sellers in view.

Negative ETH Funding Rates Frame the Purchase

Trader Ted (@TedPillows) said on X that ETH funding rates had dropped to their lowest levels since June's bottom, pointing to crowded shorts expecting a major dump. Funding is the periodic payment exchanged between longs and shorts in perpetual futures markets. When the rate turns negative, shorts pay longs, which usually signals that more traders lean bearish.

Very negative funding can still squeeze shorts if price jumps and forced covering hits the tape, though negative funding alone does not forecast a rebound. Recent coverage has already tracked soft and negative Binance ETH funding prints while long accounts stayed crowded. The whale purchase and the funding backdrop are two separate reads: one is named on-chain accumulation, the other is leverage positioning.

Why the ETH Whale Buy Matters Below September Highs

The reported buys cleared near $2,286, well below Ethereum's September high near $2,800, a gap that shows how much selling pressure has persisted since that peak. A $62.97 million clip is large enough to dominate the day's on-chain chatter, but it does not, by itself, reset the higher-timeframe chart.

Attribution shapes how the stake should be read. If investigators confirm the exchange-account losses, the "whale" represents a post-theft deployment of cash rather than fresh spot demand. If the link weakens, the same wallet still shows a fast $62.97 million ETH build at prices far below the September high. Either path leaves traders watching whether funding stays soft and whether ETH can reclaim levels closer to $2,800, not whether one five-hour buy proves a recovery.

This article originally appeared on Live Bitcoin News.