The move comes more than two years after ENS founder Nick Johnson revealed that the large stash of ETH had been deposited during ENS’ first two years of operation.
On July 31, an anonymous whale controlling an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain resurfaced, claiming 39,712 ETH valued at approximately $74 million. The mysterious whale, identified only through its associated ENS address “darknet.eth”, also moved 63,734 ETH, worth approximately $119 million, to a new wallet address.
Twitter user @lookonchain posted that “After 2.7 years of dormancy, darkmarket.eth reclaim 39,712 $ETH ($74.17M) locked in the ENS auction just now. And transferred 63,734 $ETH($119M) out to a new wallet.”
In 2021, ENS founder and lead developer Nick Johnson tweeted a reminder for “darkmarket.eth” domain owners to reclaim their ETH locked-in ENS deposits for its first two years. The ENS founder also provided a link that would allow those with ETH deposited in ENS auctions to claim their digital assets. However, despite the reminder, the funds were not claimed for two years and five months.
According to Johnson, there are still more than 100,000 titles that remain unclaimed in ENS. The developer of the domain service highlighted that these are worth tens of thousands in ETH and urged users to check their own addresses and claim their funds.
ENS Whale Moves Millions in ETH
ENS was launched in May 2017 by two developers from the Ethereum Foundation, Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande. The protocol has gained popularity as a domain name service on the Ethereum mainnet. With easy-to-use naming systems, it makes it easy to map long public addresses used to receive cryptocurrency, including ETH and its tokens.
With the whale activating his address and transferring substantial funds, Nick Johnson directed the anonymous ENS holder to a different domain where he could claim assets worth “tens of thousands of dollars.” Beyond controlling the “darknet.eth” domain, the whale is associated with other domains, such as “pago.eth” and “silkroad.eth.”
However, ENS’s core privacy protection feature ensures that the true identity behind “darknet.eth” remains encrypted and private. According to this feature, it means that even the ENS service implementers cannot figure out the real identity of the whale. Consequently, all activities performed by the whale will remain on-chain and tracked but will remain anonymous unless their details are leaked from centralized outlets like exchanges, for example.
The ENS system consists mainly of the ENS registry, responsible for registering domain names, and the Resolver, which translates these names into machine-readable addresses.
In addition to offering seamless naming solutions, the ENS platform serves as a launching pad for users to build censorship-resistant, decentralized websites, reinforcing the service’s appeal within the crypto community.
ENS Is Popular, Will the Whale Sell ETH?
As of July 31, 2023, the ENS has achieved a major milestone, creating more than 2.7 million unique domain names and integrating with more than 570 platforms. With a remarkable 699,000 domain owners, some people, like the whale that controls “darknet.eth”, manage multiple domain names. Depending on demand, these domains can be auctioned at higher prices, presenting ENS holders with profitable opportunities.
Currently, users can only speculate whether the ENS whale will proceed to sell their coins or engage in other activities, including staking via a public node or liquidity staking platform like Rocket Pool. More and more holders have moved their ETH to staking addresses, noting the sharp rise in coins sitting on the official Beacon Chain deposit address.
By Marina Meza
