Ethereum ICO-Era Stalwart Golem Sent $100M Ether to Exchanges in the Past Month
The protocol was one of the first ICOs on Ethereum, raising $8.6 million worth of ether in 29 minutes and setting the precedent for thousands of other ICOs in the years since.
- Golem, an Ethereum-based project, has transferred over $100 million worth of ether (ETH) to exchanges in the past month, potentially increasing selling pressure in the market.
- Golem raised millions of dollars during the 2016 ICO boom and has seen its token value decline significantly from its all-time high, despite ongoing development efforts in AI tools.
Golem, one of the earliest Ethereum initial coin offerings (ICOs), has sent over $100 million worth of ether (ETH) to exchanges in the past month, possibly adding selling pressure to the market.
ICOs were a popular way to raise funds to build cryptocurrency projects, with billions of dollars raised from 2016 to 2019. These lost charm among investors in the following years, however, amid regulatory tussles and a general lack of demand.
Data tracked by Arkham shows that Golem’s main wallet has transferred millions of ETH to other wallets, which were later sent to exchanges such as Binance, Bitfinex, Coinbase, and others. Most of these transactions are below $10 million in value and are sent daily.
Independent journalist Colin Wu first reported on Golem’s wallet movements. Golem’s X account did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the project has not publicly revealed any major upcoming product releases on its X account.
Golem is working on artificial intelligence (AI) based tools as the sector gains interest among traders, as per a roadmap spotlight released in May.
Transactions to crypto exchanges usually imply an intention to sell holdings, as large amounts of tokens are usually not held on an exchange service for a long time for security reasons.
Golem raised over $8.7 million worth of ETH in 2016, becoming one of the biggest benefactors of the ICO frenzy in those years as its decentralized computing narrative did the rounds on social media sites. It positioned itself as a marketplace for computing power, where users can rent out their unused computational resources in return for Golem’s GLM tokens.
But popularity has waned since: Golem currently trades at just 30 cents with a market cap of $300 million, down from an all-time high of $1.32 in January 2018.
Shaurya Malwa
Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.