This is the second OTC deal the Foundation has completed with a corporate Ethereum treasury buyer.
Ethereum News
The Ethereum Foundation sold 5,000 Ethereum to BitMine Immersion Technologies on Saturday through a direct over-the-counter transaction. The agreed price was $2,042.96 per coin, bringing the total value of the deal to approximately $10.2 million. The Foundation confirmed that the on-chain transfer would originate from a Safe multisig wallet.
The proceeds are earmarked for the Foundation's core operating budget. That budget covers protocol research and development, ecosystem growth programs, and community grant funding. The Foundation described the sale as part of its routine treasury management activities.
This is the second OTC deal the Foundation has completed with a corporate Ethereum treasury buyer. The first took place in July 2025, when the Foundation sold 10,000 Ethereum to SharpLink Gaming at an average price of $2,572.37, in a transaction valued at roughly $25.7 million. SharpLink currently ranks as the second-largest corporate holder of Ethereum.
Both transactions fall under a treasury management framework that the Foundation introduced in June 2025. The policy sets a target of annual spending equal to approximately 15% of total treasury holdings. It also requires maintaining a multi-year operating runway to ensure long-term financial stability.
BitMine, listed on NYSE American under the ticker BMNR, is chaired by Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee. The firm began accumulating Ethereum in mid-2025, following an approach modeled on Strategy's Bitcoin acquisition strategy. It now holds more than 4.5 million Ethereum, making it the largest corporate holder of the asset, with holdings valued at approximately $9.3 billion.
The Foundation also disclosed this week that it has begun staking a portion of its treasury. It plans to deploy around 70,000 Ethereum into validators running on open-source infrastructure. Separately, the Foundation published a new mandate describing its role in the Ethereum ecosystem, stating that the network should remain censorship-resistant, open source, and privacy-preserving as it scales. staking decentralization
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