Golem ICO wallets start moving Ethereum (ETH) again

Golem, one of the high-profile token sales of 2016, is moving Ethereum (ETH) to Binance again. The project, which promised to build decentralized computing, was financed with 820,000 ETH. 

Golem, one of the best-funded crypto projects, moved Ethereum (ETH) again in several transactions to Binance and Coinbase. The Golem project, which promised to build decentralized computation tools, made its biggest earnings from simply gaining ETH upfront and using a part of it for staking. 

The Golem wallets became active in the past month, coinciding with the slide of ETH under $3,000. The ICO started moving funds earlier, though the latest transactions have the biggest potential to put pressure on ETH. The problem of old ICOs with big treasuries and dormant reserves of ETH is one of the big issues for the token’s price. Some wallets from the original ETH ICO now contain more tokens even compared to the Ethereum Foundation.

The Golem ICO moved funds for the first time in five months. Previously, the Golem multisig wallet funded a series of new addresses, which are now the origin of transactions to exchanges. In the past week, Golem shifted 7,250 ETH to intermediary addresses, of which 4,850 were sent to the markets. 

Over the years, Golem has spent some of the ETH but retained over 98,000 ETH as a stake in the Beacon Chain contract. The recent amount of ETH moved to exchanges matches the potential reward from staking. Golem would earn up to 3,872 ETH a year, and the recent ETH sale is consistent with staking since the summer of 2023. 

Previously, Golem Network has explained that a part of the ETH shifts is for intended staking tests. The proceeds of staking may be used for ecosystem development, as well as marketing and project visibility. Despite this, Golem has been inactive on social media since the end of 2024. 

The recent shift in funds is relatively small compared to Golem’s activity during the late 2024 bull market. During a market peak, Golem moved 24,400 ETH, with another 36,000 ETH shifted to exchanges in December. Previously, Golem claimed some of the ETH may be sent to Binance or Coinbase to test other forms of delegated staking. 

Golem ecosystem funds other projects

Similar to other large-scale ICOs like Animoca Brands, Golem has spread its influence by funding other projects. While the ICO has sold some of its ETH, it also managed to retain it for the long term, while similar projects have sold all ICO proceeds. 

Golem has set aside 40,000 ETH for innovation scholarships and supporting other projects. The potential of Golem is to create multiple new startups, as recent ICOs raise much smaller amounts of ETH. The platform has not turned into a formal fund and has no known backers since crypto VC funding was barely developed in 2016. 

Golem retains around 10K ETH in its multisig wallet and has not posted any proof of reserves or a plan for spending the funds. The team has claimed it did not intend to liquidate the entire ETH treasury, though the project ended up sitting on significant liquidity after a series of sales in 2024. 

The GLM native token for Golem is still tradable, though forgotten in comparison to hotter new memes. GLM traded at $0.31 after a recent recovery. Short-term traders view GLM as a potential source of easy 2X gains due to the available liquidity and listings on top exchanges.

The token is valued at only $313M, easily surpassed by newer assets. GLM is also fully launched and diluted, leading to speculative trading with regular spikes and drawdowns. GLM peaked above $0.72 during the altcoin market rally in March 2024. 

GLM is in the DePIN category of tokens, though it has not announced any links to AI or the recent agent trend. GLM ranks in the top 20 of the DePIN category, lagging behind the hottest tokens like RNDR and TAO.

Golem has built a general-purpose network for shared computational resources, with just under 20K holders of the GLM token and ecosystem participants. So far, GLM has not explored the meme potential of its asset or tried to ride any modern trends, which are mostly well-supplied by its ICO reserves.

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