Ethereum Drops Below $1,740 as BitMine Plans $300M Preferred Stock Raise and Tom Lee Targets $250,000

Ethereum News

BitMine Immersion Technologies is preparing to raise up to $300 million through a sale of 3 million Series A preferred shares earmarked for additional Ethereum accumulation, staking, and validator infrastructure. The shares carry a $100 stated value and a 9.50% annual cash dividend paid in weekly installments, with a planned NYSE listing under the ticker BMNP. Native ETH staking is now the firm's principal revenue source, with 4.7 million ETH staked through its MAVAN platform generating roughly $276 million in projected annualized rewards. The structure aims to fund cash payouts with protocol yield while letting the underlying treasury keep compounding through validator income.

BitMine's latest accumulation push added 26,497 ETH worth about $52 million, lifting total holdings to 5,416,901 ETH — roughly 4.48% of the network's circulating supply. The company also holds roughly $446 million in cash to support ongoing operations and validator scaling. Prior tranches included a $151 million buy in May after ETH slipped below $2,200 and a $237 million follow-on the next week, bringing the firm to more than 88% of its stated goal of owning 5% of all Ethereum. The pace makes BitMine one of the largest single corporate validators on the network.

Institutional demand for ETH through regulated wrappers has gone the other direction. Spot Ethereum ETF products have now logged 17 consecutive sessions of net outflows since May 8, with the most recent print showing roughly $52.94 million withdrawn in a single day. Cumulative ETF net assets have compressed to about $9.96 billion, the longest losing streak since the products launched. The persistent redemptions have removed a steady marginal buyer from the market and amplified downside pressure as price action retests multi-month lows, with funds offering no offsetting bid to absorb selling from other cohorts.

On-chain demand from long-term holders has cracked alongside the ETF flows. Glassnode's hodler net position change — which tracks monthly supply movement among coins older than 155 days — peaked at 339,222 ETH on June 1 before collapsing to 68,470 ETH by June 3, an 80% drop in roughly 48 hours. The cohort had been steadily accumulating into the start of the month before sharply pulling back, possibly anticipating that ETF demand would rebound. Instead, both groups stepped back simultaneously, leaving thin spot bids and exposing the order book to forced selling from leveraged positioning.

That leverage unwind has already begun. Funding rates on perpetual futures climbed to their highest level since early 2026 before snapping back, triggering an estimated $369 million in liquidations across the ETH complex over the past week. Spot price is down roughly 10% in seven days, reflecting cascading stop-outs rather than fundamental balance-sheet pressure. Futures open interest had also pushed to a record 16 million ETH on May 28, leaving the derivatives market structurally crowded into longs at higher levels and primed for the kind of wash-out now playing out across centralized venues and on-chain margin protocols.

Against that backdrop, Tom Lee used a speaking slot at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris to set a long-term price target of $250,000 for ETH, a roughly 50-fold expansion from current levels. His thesis rests on autonomous AI agents needing an instant settlement layer that legacy payment rails cannot provide, with Ethereum positioned as the default rail for machine-to-machine commerce. He paired that with continued growth in stablecoins and real-world asset tokenization running on the network, arguing the combined opportunity could lift Ethereum's value into the trillions. Lee framed prevailing bearish sentiment as itself the contrarian signal for accumulation.

ETH is changing hands near $1,739 after a 7.71% single-day drop, with market capitalization at roughly $209.6 billion and 24-hour turnover above $24.3 billion — elevated volume confirming distribution rather than apathy. Trend reads sideways into the decline, with the prior $1,800 shelf now flipped into immediate overhead resistance and the $1,700 round number the line bulls must defend to avoid a measured move toward $1,550. A reclaim of $1,800 on rising spot ETF flows would invalidate the breakdown thesis; sustained closes below $1,700 alongside continued ETF redemptions would open the door to deeper capitulation before the leverage reset completes.