BitMine Buys 10,000 ETH From the Ethereum Foundation OTC at $2,387, Pushing Treasury Past 4.97M ETH
Tom Lee–chaired BitMine purchased 10,000 ETH at $2,387 — roughly $23.87 million — directly from the Ethereum Foundation in an OTC transaction on April 24, lifting its treasury to 4,976,485 ETH and following a separate 5,000-ETH purchase the company executed in March.
BitMine, the publicly traded crypto-mining company chaired by Tom Lee, purchased 10,000 ETH at $2,387 per coin — roughly $23.87 million notional — directly from the Ethereum Foundation on April 24 in an over-the-counter transaction.
Where the treasury sits now
Following the buy, BitMine holds 4,976,485 ETH, valued at approximately $11.5 billion at current prices. The position carries an unrealized loss of more than $6 billion against ETH's prior $4,946 peak; ETH traded near $2,313 on the announcement date, roughly 3% below the OTC fill. This is BitMine's second direct purchase from the Foundation in two months, following a March buy of 5,000 ETH at an average $2,043. The Foundation also sold 10,000 ETH to Sharplink in July of the prior year.
The Foundation's stated rationale
The Ethereum Foundation framed the sale as routine treasury management — funds that "support the Foundation's core operations & activities, including protocol R&D, ecosystem development, community grant funding, and more." OTC sales let the Foundation diversify holdings without printing market-impact prints on spot venues. Disclosure: Tom Lee is an investor in Dastan, the parent company of Decrypt, which reported the transaction.
Our Take
BitMine's accumulation pattern has shifted from open-market buys to direct OTC fills with the Foundation. That has two implications. For BitMine, OTC clears at one stable mark without slippage on a $20M+ ticket — useful when reporting to public-market investors. For the Foundation, recurring institutional demand at the $2,000–$2,400 band creates a soft floor without the optics of repeated DEX prints. Watch whether a third Foundation OTC sale shows up in May; if it does, BitMine's "ETH-as-corporate-treasury" thesis becomes a structural buyer for the Foundation's ongoing operating cash needs — the closest analog to MicroStrategy's BTC treasury template, but with a counterparty that can't disappear.
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