Ethereum Foundation sells ETH to Bitmine again: cumulative $56.52 million

Ethereum Foundation (EF) sold another 10,000 ETH via OTC to Bitmine (NYSE: BMNR) at around 12:00 a.m. Taiwan time on May 2, with an average price of $2,292.15 and a total of about $22.9 million. After that, on-chain analytics platform Arkham revealed that this is a continuing OTC deal between Bitmine and EF, with a cumulative size of about $56.52 million. Arkham also noted that Bitmine seemingly paid about 24 hours before EF delivered the ETH to Bitmine, and the abnormal on-chain timing sparked discussion.

EF resells 10,000 ETH: explains it is used for core operations and ecosystem funding

In an official X post, EF explained that the sale is used to fund the foundation’s core operations and activities, including protocol R&D, ecosystem development, community grants, and more. The on-chain transactions come from a Safe multisig address under EF, 0x9fC3…213e, and are part of “sustained treasury management” activities under EF’s public governance policy.

Bitmine also said on X that it is “happy to support the Ethereum Foundation’s operations and funding.” This is the latest round of Bitmine’s consecutive ETH purchases from EF since April—after the previous round at the end of April, Bitmine had boosted its holdings to 5.07 million ETH, and reduced its average buy price by buying via phased OTC, thereby smoothing out the cumulative cost during Tom Lee’s tenure.

Arkham flags the anomaly: payment before delivery by about 24 hours

The key observation disclosed by on-chain analytics platform Arkham is that, in this OTC transaction, Bitmine seemingly paid the consideration about 24 hours before EF actually delivered the ETH to the Bitmine address. This timing is not entirely unheard of in the OTC industry—when the two counterparties have high trust or long-term cooperation, “pay first and deliver the asset afterward” is a common practice. But for EF and Bitmine as counterparties, whether there is a written agreement or collateral arrangement supporting that trust is not public at this time.

Arkham titled it “Vitalik is selling. But Tom Lee is buying,” placing two major representative figures in Ethereum side by side—EF (one of the main decision-makers for Vitalik) continues to reduce holdings, while BitMine (Tom Lee is the chairman) continues to accumulate. This comparison itself amplifies community criticism of EF’s long-term behavior of selling ETH.

Community backlash and follow-up observation: Why doesn’t EF stake to earn returns?

Under EF’s announcement, a large volume of criticism accumulated, focusing on three questions: First, why doesn’t EF simply stake its own ETH to earn returns, instead of selling it long term? Second, $56.52 million is only the sell-pressure scale from the past two weeks—how much money does EF’s core operations actually need to burn? Third, as EF continues to sell ETH, with ETH performance in the secondary market relatively weaker than BTC, is EF’s own behavior dragging down ETH price performance?

For the crypto industry, this long-term EF × Bitmine OTC relationship presents a structure worth watching: Bitmine led by Tom Lee is a representative of “hoarding ETH” in the public market (analogous to Strategy’s role for BTC), while EF is one of the core parties making issuance decisions for the ETH system. By directly transacting via OTC and skipping the secondary market, it means EF’s sell pressure would not directly hit the public order book, and Bitmine can also avoid the price impact from large buy orders. However, if the payment timing disclosed by Arkham reflects special treatment, it could trigger fairness concerns about EF toward other potential OTC counterparties. The next point to watch is whether EF responds to the timing issues disclosed by Arkham, and Bitmine’s changes in holdings in May (disclosure documents typically before financial reports are released after 5/12).

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