Tom Lee's Bitmine may be buying ETH, but Vitalik Buterin and everyone else appears to be selling

coindesk.com 3 h

Ethereum

Ether $ETH$2,113.11 has been catching flak from all angles of late, plunging below $2,000, with sell pressure emanating from every angle of the market, including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and derivatives traders alike.

The second-largest cryptocurrency is currently trading around $1,950, down 60% since August and 42% since Jan. 14.

Its plight can in part be attributed to what analysts are calling the latest crypto bear market, but $ETH itself has underperformed other large caps like BTC, XRP and ADA, which are down closer to 35% since mid-January.

The divergence from its peers was helped along by a wave of sales from Vitalik Buterin, and, more recently, by derivatives traders.

Onchain analysts have pointed to an entity offloading large amounts of $ETH on decentralized derivatives venues in order to repay loans on Aave.

The wallets involved have sold roughly 47,000 $ETH ($120 million) over the past four days, including around 31,700 $ETH in just a five-hour stretch, according to data shared by MLm onchain.

They still have nearly 50,000 $ETH sitting as collateral on Aave, with about $86 million in USDC borrowed against it. With $ETH sliding, the position is now hovering close to liquidation, forcing more selling to stay above water.

It’s the kind of feedback loop ether holders have seen before: price drops, collateral weakens, debt gets repaid, more $ETH hits the market.

$ETH is falling harder than the rest

Part of ether’s particularly steep drop is that it remains the go-to asset for leverage in crypto, which means when traders are forced to unwind, $ETH is often what gets sold first.

But it also reflects a market that’s struggling to find a reason to buy right now.

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci believes $ETH is struggling due to institutional investors' bias toward bitcoin.

“I think what happens when institutions come in, they're probably going to buy the oldest asset,” Scaramucci said in an interview with OANDA. “And so it's Bitcoin. Now, are you going to say, could they potentially buy Ethereum? I would say yes….But I would say generally institutions are going to favor something like Bitcoin. And that's not to say that it won't spread out in the ensuing years, but that's where things are right now.”

There is also a corner of the market that attempts delta-neutral trades, buying spot $ETH and lending it out on platforms like Aave, while simultaneously shorting the asset on futures. These traders have no directional exposure, but may need to increase their short position if funding rates skew, which could drive more sell pressure.

Treasury buyers are feeling it too

One of the more optimistic developments for ether over the past year was the rise of so-called $ETH treasury companies — firms that buy and hold $ETH in a MicroStrategy-style bet.

The idea was that corporates would provide a new class of long-term buyer, helping soak up supply and putting a floor under the market.

That hasn’t really happened.

With $ETH now down more than 50% since August, many of these companies are sitting on losses, having accumulated at prices that looked reasonable at the time but painful in hindsight.

Tom Lee’s BitMine (BMNR) is the best-known examples. Lee has been a consistent ether bull, and BitMine’s $ETH position has been pitched as strategic rather than speculative.

BitMine currently holds 4.29 million $ETH tokens, worth $9 billion, with 57% staked to earn a yield. Dropstab data shows that a total of $16.3 billion has been invested, creating an unrealized loss of $7.3 billion.

The company even bought the dip earlier this month, buying $100 million of $ETH at $2,300, but the purchase failed to stem the steady flow of sell pressure, as $ETH subsequently tumbled below $2,000.

But it’s hard to play the role of “strong hands” when the asset keeps sliding, and everyone else is selling into the weakness.

Instead of acting as support, these treasury holdings are starting to look like another overhang — not because they’re dumping today, but because the market knows they’re trapped.