Ethereum price is currently pivotal at $200 as consolidation commences in a relatively stable cryptocurrency market.

Cryptocurrency whales could be accumulating Ether (ETH) to get ready for an anticipated price rally following the launch of ETH 2.0.

Ethereum price is in consolidation at around $200 in the wake of a recovery staged from the support at $190. Bullish action on Tuesday closed in on $210. However, the price formed a high at $209 due to the bullish exhaustion. ETH/USD reversed the trend, trimming the subtle gains. At the time of writing, the price remains pivotal at $200.

Read more: Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD consolidates above $200, sustains uptrend above the trendline

Whales accumulate ahead of Ethereum 2.0 launch

According to a report by Cointelegraph, whales seem to be accumulating Ethereum (ETH). At the moment, 25% of the total Ether supply is controlled by the top 100 wallets. The data supporting this observation comes from Santiment, a blockchain data analysis firm. Santiment claims that the high volume of ETH in the top 100 wallets hints that whales are actively accumulating.

From the data, Santiment found that bigger investors “have a collective sentiment of the token being undervalued and believe it’s a great mid to long-term hold play.”

Consequently, Santiment cautioned that accumulation does not always result in a rally to higher levels and that “Sometimes these price rises take a bit of time after these accumulation rises.”

The data is also in a general form and not specific. In other words, it exhibits elements of plurality as the majority of the top 20-largest digital wallets are linked to exchanges. For instance, TokenAnalyst data points that wallets belonging to Binance, Poloniex, Huobi, OKex, Bitstamp, Gemini, Bittrex and Kraken hold approximately 18.5 million ETH, which makes about 16.8% Ether’s total supply.

The anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0, a new protocol that will see Ethereum run on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm could be driving the whales to accumulate ETH. Moreover, the launch could ignite a bull rally for Ethereum price hence the rush to buy when the price is low.