A whale with a history of profiting from previous crypto market movements has stocked up on 8.5 million USDT on Binance, intending to go long on ether (ETH).

According to the on-chain expert investment analysis platform Lookonchain, a whale, who previously made more than $2.5 million from the depegging of the USDC stablecoin, exchanged 7,169 ETH valued at about $13 million for a similar amount of staked ether (stETH), which they deposited into Aave.

Per the transaction records, the whale then used the staked ether on Aave to borrow 8.45 million USDT, which they then proceeded to deposit into Binance, a move Lookonchain posited would end in the whale buying ETH.

Lookonchain claims that, in total, the whale ended up depositing 28,755 stETH on Aave worth approximately $52 million and, in turn, borrowing 36 million USDT from the DeFi protocol.

Smart money on ETH hitting $2,000

The whale’s roundabout process ensures they can trade and go long on ETH using the Aave loan rather than their funds.

Coming from such a seasoned player in the crypto market, the move could be interpreted as the belief that the price of ETH is due for a lift in the coming days.

At the time of writing, ETH was changing hands at $1,816, with a 24-hour trading volume of about $6.5 billion, per CoinGecko. While it represents a 2.15% drop from the previous day’s price, it’s a 0.52% bump across the last seven days.

ETH has largely demonstrated stability in its price movements in the last week, suggesting confidence and investor trust despite overall market fluctuations.

Many analysts still predict that ETH will hit the $2,000 mark soon. However, it must turn the $1,900 level into a support floor and avoid any severe decline in value.

Lookonchain is forecasting that the whale will liquidate their stETH deposits when the price of ETH may have dropped by at least 20% to $1,511. If that happens, it will result in about $9 million in losses for the whale.