Tom Lee’s BitMine Buys Another $23 Million in ETH From Ethereum Foundation

The Ethereum Foundation said this on Friday a deal completed to sell 10,000 ETH to the largest Ethereum treasury company, BitMine Immersion Technologies, marking the cryptocurrency’s second treasury sale to the publicly traded company.

The over-the-counter sale agreement was completed at an average price of $2,387 per ETH, bringing the total value of the sale to $23.87 million. Ethereum recently traded at $2,313, down about 1% on the day and 5% over the past week.

Shares of BitMine (BMNR) are up more than 1% on the day, recently trading at $22.25. BMNR shares are down about 3% in the past week, but are up more than 7% in the past month. Yahoo Finance data.

“This sale funds the Ethereum Foundation’s core operations and activities, including protocol R&D, ecosystem development, community grants, and more,” the Foundation wrote on X.

In March, the Foundation sold 5,000 ETH to the company at an average price of approximately $2,043 per coin. The Ethereum Foundation also previously sold ETH to another Ethereum treasury company, Sharplink, with a sale of 10,000 ETH last July.

Ethereum’s price has fallen sharply since last summer, when it hit a new peak of $4,946, and momentum around the coin – and the broader crypto market – has fueled the rise of a number of Ethereum treasury companies.

BitMine is by far the largest company of its kind, with over $11.5 billion in Ethereum holdings, fueled by consistent weekly purchases. However, the substantial price drop means the company is currently sitting on an unrealized loss of more than $6 billion, according to data from DropsTab. (Disclosure: BitMine Chairman Tom Lee is an investor in Dastan, the parent company of an editorially independent company Declutter.)

On Monday, BitMine unveiled its largest weekly Bitcoin purchase of the year, adding $235 million to the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. The company held 4,976,485 ETH as of Monday.