Bitcoin ETFs snap losing streak, price rises amid reports of executive order

Despite having an unrealized loss of nearly $9.7 billion, the leading ethereum treasury firm has acquired even more of the token.

BitMine Immersion Technologies announced it has acquired 126,971 tokens over the past week, the firm’s largest purchase of ethereum this year. The company’s total stockpile stands at 5.5 million, or around 4.6% of ethereum’s total supply.

“We increased our buying as we believe this pullback in ETH prices does not reflect the strengthening of Ethereum fundamentals,” BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement.

The acquisition comes after the crypto markets saw a broad downturn last week, with many tokens hitting multiyear lows.

Lee argued the sell-off in crypto was a “superficial take.” As artificial intelligence grows more capable, demand for hardened infrastructure is likely to increase alongside expectations that AI systems will expose flaws in centralized rails and weak decentralized protocols, according to Lee.

“We believe this actually strengthens the use case and product market fit for hardened and reliable decentralized blockchains like ethereum,” Lee said. “Thus, we believe ETH prices should not be coming under pressure.”

Meanwhile, last week ethereum ETFs saw more than $173 million in outflows, marking the fourth consecutive week of net redemptions, data from SoSoValue shows.

Joe Lubin, cofounder of ethereum and current CEO of software development firm Consensys, said the recent moves by the Ethereum Foundation, namely staff turnover and leadership changes, are not evidence of a crisis, but a necessary evolution, per a CoinDesk report. Lubin emphasized that “Ethereum is not on the decline, not at all,” even if “we are not front and center right now in terms of capital inflows, investments.”

On Thursday, altcoins swept lower as bitcoin weakened. The tokens with the biggest losses in the last 24 hours are NEAR, ethena, and Zcash, each declining double digits in the period.

Other tokens have dropped to lows not seen in over a year in the past 24 hours:

• Ethereum dropped 4.4% to under $1,780, a level not seen since April 2025.

• XRP declined 4.5% to an 18-month low last hit in November 2024.

• Solana decreased 6% to trade below the $70 mark, its lowest price since December 2023.

• Dogecoin slid below $0.09, a 27-month low last seen in February 2024.

“Sentiment for crypto is firmly in the gutter as fears surrounding BTC/STRC and its potential overflow compound and overshadow anything that can be read as positive news (e.g. CLARITY movements),” according to Sean Dawson, head of research at crypto options platform Derive.xyz.

“[Altcoins] are high beta plays to BTC and are typically sold heavily in a downturn. Simply put, I’d be even more bearish on alts,” Dawson told Sherwood News.

“Further, liquidity has been drained into this year’s ‘superhot’ narrative of AI/data centers. In other words, there are just better, more exciting opportunities elsewhere,” Dawson added.

One cryptocurrency that has bucked the downtrend has been worldcoin, the native token for World, the digital identity project backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While the broader crypto market has been pushing lower, WLD has jumped nearly 5% in the last 24 hours and 90% in the past seven days, data from CoinGecko shows.