MicroStrategy is bad at timing the market

On Monday, two researchers announced they were leaving the nonprofit organization tasked with supporting the second-largest blockchain network, adding to a growing exodus from the Ethereum Foundation.

Carl Beek, who helped architect the early design of ethereum’s beacon chain, will end his seven-year tenure with the foundation at the end of the month, while research scientist Julian Ma, who focused on product and growth work, has also decided to leave after four years.

Beek and Ma deepen a recent bout of turnover. Last week, the foundation said in a blog post that lead developers Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko are moving on from the organization. In April, Josh Stark, who was on the Ethereum Foundation leadership team for five years, left, as did Trent Van Epps, who organized Protocol Guild, which provides funding to core developers. The string of departures has raised concerns among those in the ecosystem.

“There have been a lot of disagreements about where ETH should move, whether from an issuance or architectural standpoint,” Laurens Fraussen, a research analyst at data provider Kaiko, told Sherwood News. “I’d assume the people leaving are either looking for greener pastures or don’t agree with the way the EF is being run.”

The foundation exodus comes as investors exit from ethereum ETFs. The investment vehicles saw more than $86 million in outflows on Monday, making six straight days of outflows, the longest streak since March, according to SoSoValue.

Meanwhile, an address identified as Galaxy Digital has a $2.3 million short position on ethereum using 20x leverage on Hyperliquid, data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen shows. The price of ethereum stands just under $2,110 as of 12:10 p.m. ET. With an entry point of $2,203, the firm has an unrealized gain of $102,000.

The second-largest cryptocurrency is nearing the $2,100 mark, declining more than 9% in the last seven days, a steeper decrease than its older sibling bitcoin, which is also suffering.

Ethereum ETFs have had five consecutive days of outflows combining for $255 million, data from SoSoValue shows.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and Harvard University both filed 13Fs showing each pulled back their exposure to ethereum.

Goldman now holds nearly $178 million in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF, down from $679 million, according to its latest 13F filing. It also exited its $394 million position in the Fidelity Ethereum Fund as well as a smaller position in ETHZilla, while adding $67 million of the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF.

Harvard completely trimmed its ethereum exposure. The endowment did not report any ethereum ETF holdings in its latest 13F filing, submitted Friday, but showed an $86.8 million position in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF in its previous 13F filing in February.

But ethereum bulls remain: treasury behemoth BitMine Immersion Technologies continued its accumlation of ethereum, albeit at a slower pace. “Over the past week, we acquired 71,672 ETH,” Chairman Tom Lee said in a Monday press release. “We view the recent pullback of ETH to below $2,200 as an attractive opportunity.” The firm’s unrealized loss now exceeds more than $7.3 billion.

Traders aren’t so bullish: prediction market-implied odds of ethereum breaking $2,500 in May stand at just 7%, a sharp drop-off from a week ago, when the probability was at 57%.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)