Ethereum extends rally as BitMine continues buying spree
The largest ethereum treasury firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, added $139.7 million worth of tokens to its stockpile.
Ethereum touched the $2,300 mark on Monday, climbing 9% in the last 24 hours and leading market gains among major cryptocurrencies.
The rally follows a steep pullback where ethereum fell to under $1,900, and it remains down more than 50% from its all-time high set last year.
“ETH is in the final stages of the ‘mini-crypto winter,’” BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a Monday press release.
BitMine Immersion Technologies, the leading ethereum treasury firm, announced last week that it accumulated 60,999 tokens worth $139.7 million, an uptick from the firm’s recent weekly average of 45,000 to 50,000 tokens.
The Ethereum Foundation sold 5,000 tokens worth $10.2 million to BitMine as part of the firm’s acquisition strategy, according to a social media post on Saturday.
“Since the start of the Iran war, crypto prices have outperformed and Ethereum has outperformed the S&P 500 by 2,450bp. This is a meaningful outperformance in a mere two weeks,” Lee said. “In our view, higher oil is triggering concerns of slowing growth for the global economy. And when investors worry about growth, they buy ‘growth stocks’ including MAG7, software and crypto.”
Flows into ETFs tied to ethereum are also improving. Ethereum ETFs attracted $160.8 million of inflows last week, putting them on track to break a four-month streak of outflows, per SoSoValue.
Traders are divided on whether the token will extend gains to the $2,500 level, as prediction market-implied odds of the token trading above the level in the month sits at 49%, up from 22% yesterday.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
If the price of ethereum climbs above $2,500, around $69.5 million worth of leveraged short positions face liquidation on blockchain trading venue Hyperliquid, data from CoinGlass shows.
Elsewhere in the crypto ecosystem, meme coins are seeing an uptick. Pepe, a frog-inspired coin native to the ethereum blockchain, is leading the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, jumping 18% in the past 24 hours. bonk has risen 9.4%, pengu has increased 7.8%, and dogecoin is up 6.4% in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.
