More than 800,000 ether (ETH) worth approximately $3 billion has left crypto exchanges since the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the launch of spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETF).

According to a Quicktake by CryptoQuant analyst Burakkesmeci, the identities of the crypto investors behind the ETH moves remain unknown; however, there are speculations as to who they could be.

Over 800K ETH Leaves Exchanges

The SEC greenlit the spot Ethereum ETFs for public listing on national securities exchanges on May 23 in a surprising turn for the crypto industry. The agency began to engage with the potential issuers a few days before the announcement and approved multiple 19b-4 applications to list the products afterward.

Despite the approval, the products were not cleared for trading immediately. The issuers must submit their S-1 registration statements in the coming weeks before the ETFs can go live. Analysts suggest that the first wave of the ETFs could launch by late June.

While the crypto community awaits the ETF launch, the large ETH outflow from exchanges within the past week raises concerns. Burakkesmeci said individual investors or institutions could be behind the outflows, noting that the market witnessed similar BTC moves after the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in mid-January.

Per Burakkesmeci’s analysis, ETH whales or individual investors could be behind the outflows because they think the cryptocurrency’s price will rally due to the approvals. On the other hand, institutions and ETF issuers could be making the moves in preparation for the launch of the products. The CryptoQuant analyst said these entities may be preparing to meet the spot Ethereum ETF demand from investors in the coming months.

A Positive Impact on ETH

Regardless of the cohort of investors behind the outflows, Burakkesmeci expects such moves to trigger an ETH rally soon.

“The above answers are each an assumption, but we can expect that the withdrawal of more than 800,000 Ethereum from exchanges in 8 days will have a positive impact on the price in the medium term,” he stated.

Analysts have predicted that ETH could explode to $20,000 following the launch of the ETFs. At the time of writing, ETH was trading at around $3,800, up 1.1% in the past 24 hours. If the predictions were to come true, the market would see the crypto asset surge over 420%.