BitMine Adds $52M ETH, Whale Dumps $136M, Whitehat Unlocks $2M From 2016 ICO

Ethereum News

Publicly traded treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies extended its Ethereum accumulation streak last week, scooping up another 26,497 ETH worth roughly $52 million as the asset slid below $2,000 for the first time since late March. Chairman Tom Lee said the firm views current prices as detached from improving fundamentals, framing the dip as part of an early-stage crypto recovery cycle. BitMine now controls 5,416,901 ETH, equal to about 4.48% of the circulating supply, with the treasury valued near $10.6 billion alongside $446 million in cash reserves and 203 BTC on its balance sheet.

A long-dormant Ethereum whale from the network's earliest era distributed roughly $136 million in ETH over the past week, offloading 55,000 tokens worth about $112.25 million and a follow-on tranche of 9,442 tokens worth $24 million at an average exit price near $2,041. The move stoked fears of capitulation among long-term holders, yet on-chain HODL wave data points the other direction. Supply held by the five-to-seven-year cohort actually expanded slightly to 9%, while short-term cohorts shed the bulk of liquidity, suggesting older wallets remain anchored even as price action tests the psychological $2,000 threshold.

BitMine's latest purchase represents a deliberate slowdown of more than 75% compared with the prior week's roughly 112,000 ETH haul, the firm's largest single accumulation of 2026. Lee has indicated the company intends to reach its long-stated target of controlling 5% of Ethereum's total supply "sometime in 2026," rather than racing toward the milestone by mid-summer. The firm currently sits roughly 90% of the way to that 5% goal, having added over one million ETH since January. The deceleration arrives as Lee weighs other capital deployment opportunities across the broader digital asset landscape.

The pullback in accumulation pace contrasts sharply with rival corporate treasuries scaling back exposure entirely. Strategy, the largest corporate blockchain asset holder by total value, trimmed $2.5 million in Bitcoin last week to fund preferred-stock dividend obligations, marking its first BTC sale since 2022. BitMine, by contrast, continues generating yield from its position through staking partnerships, deploying around 4.7 million ETH that produces an estimated $258 million in annualized rewards. Projected revenue could climb toward $296 million once its in-house Made in America Validator Network reaches full operational scale.

A separate critique gaining traction within developer circles attributes Ethereum's 65% decline against Bitcoin since the September 2022 Merge to specific execution misfires at the Ethereum Foundation rather than macro rotation. The ETH/BTC ratio has collapsed from roughly 0.085 at the Merge peak to near 0.028, and one ICO-era developer argues the slide reflects missed product priorities: a delayed first-party staking interface, energy-efficiency marketing aimed at audiences who never asked for it, and a roadmap that consumed seven years to ship proof-of-stake while competitors shipped end-user applications. The criticism reframes the underperformance as accumulated execution debt with named decisions attached.

In a notable security milestone, a researcher operating as 0xFlorent recovered 1,003.62 ETH worth roughly $2 million from the dormant HongCoin smart contract, releasing funds that had remained frozen since the project's failed 2016 token sale. An integer-overflow vulnerability in an administrative function allowed the contract's original multisig signers to reset blocked balances and trigger refunds for 48 original investors. The HongCoin team signed 41 unlock transactions individually, with two participants already retrieving a combined 96.5 ETH. The whitehat episode underscores how legacy contract logic continues to lock dormant value across Ethereum's earliest deployments.

Ethereum trades near $1,975 with the broader trend mapping sideways after a 1.3% daily decline and a 15% drop over the past month. The $2,000 psychological threshold has flipped from support into immediate overhead resistance, and prediction-market positioning increasingly favors a retest of the $1,500 region before any sustained recovery toward $3,000. Spot demand from corporate treasuries such as BitMine cushions downside, but without a reclaim of $2,000 on rising volume, bearish continuation risks dominate. A weekly close above $2,100 would invalidate the breakdown thesis; failure to defend $1,900 opens structural downside toward the prior cycle base.